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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE ENGLISH HUMORISTS OF 
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 




BY 



WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY 



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Edited by 



STARK YOUNG, M.A. 

Adjunct Professor of General Literature 
The University of Texas 



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GINN AND COMPANY 

BOSTON • NEW YORK • CHICAGO • LONDON 



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By stark young 



ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
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PRIETORS • BOSTON • U.S.A. 

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PREFACE 

An attempt has been made to adapt this edition of the 
"Humorists" to the use of either college or preparatory 
school. To that end the notes are rather full in number but 
brief in the space given to each note, in order that the book 
may be satisfactorily complete for the uses of younger stu- 
dents, and yet at the same time be able to furnish the ad- 
vanced student with sufficient references for further inquiry. 
The essays are exceptionally rich in allusions, very happy and 
suggestive allusions, and the purpose of the notes is to increase 
rather than to satisfy the student's curiosity regarding them. 
I know of no better book than the "Humorists" to afford a 
starting point for a more or less extensive reading. 

For advice and timely criticism in the work, I wish to thank 
my friends, Professor W. P. Trent, of Columbia, Professor 
M. G. Callaway, Jr., and Professor Killis Campbell, of the 
University of Texas; and for help with the references and 
otherwise. Miss E. M. Pool of St. Agatha School, New York 
City, and Mr. Paul McDermott and Miss Katherine Searcy, 
of the University of Texas. 

By the courtesy of Messrs, Harper and Brothers, the text 
here used, with the accompanying footnotes, is that of the 
Biographical Edition of Thackeray's works. 

To the editions of the "Humorists" by Professor W. L. 
Phelps (1900-) and Ernst Regel (Halle, 1885-1891, in six 
parts) I wish to express my sense of indebtedness for general 
suggestions and for several points as indicated in my notes. 

STARK YOUNG 

The University of Texas 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

INTRODUCTION vi 

ESSAYS 

Swift i 

CONGREVE AND AdDISON 43 

Steele 82 

Prior, Gay, and Pope 123 

Hogarth, Smollett, and Fielding 170 

Sterne and Goldsmith 208 

NOTES 249 



IV 



INTRODUCTION 

A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF THACKERAY'S LIFE 

Thackeray was born in Calcutta on the i8th of July, 1811. 
His father and both his grandfathers were in the Indian civil 
service. His mother, Anne Becher, married young: she 
was only nineteen when William Makepeace was born. Five 
years after his birth she was left a widow, and six years later 
married Major Henry Carmichael Smyth, who was all to 
Thackeray that a father could have been. For the better 
climate and educational advantages afforded, the child was 
sent, when he was five years old, to England. On the way his 
ship stopped at St. Helena, and the young Thackeray was 
taken to see Napoleon, whose second funeral he was to attend 
and record many years later. In England he was put in the 
care of his aunt, Mrs. Ritchie of Chiswick. We have yet 
the little letters of that year ; in one of them — and quite out 
of his later style and attitude — he writes back to his mother 
that "my Aunt Ritchie is very good to me," and "I like 
Chiswick, there are so many good boys to play with;" from 
this year, too, it is also recorded that his head was alarm- 
ingly big for his age, that he drew the house in India with 
his monkey in the window, and begged for pennies to spend, 
— all characteristic enough. He was sent to Charterhouse 
School at the age of eleven, where for six years he lived or 
rather endured the rough and Spartan life of the old time pub- 
lic school. His letters to his mother, who was now in Eng- 
land, tell that he works hard, forms plans, makes resolutions, 
fights his way to a broken nose to carry through life with 



vi ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

him, and from a heavy heart wishes there were 369 instead 
of 370 fellows in school. 

At eighteen he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, but 
left the following year. He had not distinguished himself 
certainly; perhaps he had found the academic but a sorry 
trade. He seems, however, to have found one real interest 
in the launching of the humorous weekly, the Snob; for 
which, among other contributions, he wrote "Timbuctoo," a 
burlesque parallel of Tennyson's prize poem on the same 
subject. The Snob was doomed to a run of nine weeks, and 
was followed by the more fortunate Gownsman, which 
achieved some seventeen numbers before its death. Along 
with these activities on the Gownsman and the Snob, were 
wine suppers, teas, and a projected essay club. Otherwise 
at the University Thackeray seems to have read much, stud- 
ied at his leisure, heaped up a mountain of good resolutions 
from his generous heart, and gotten himself put down as 
"somewhat lazy but pleasant and gentlemanlike." 

From Cambridge young Thackeray went to the Continent. 
He began there a roving life : from place to place, Rome, 
Paris, Weimar, wherever his whims and purposes might send 
him; studying languages and art, observing, idling, storing 
up knowledge of men and memories of pleasant hours. He 
picked up a French accent to be proud of all his life, learned 
German and loved Schiller; and in Weimar, that little 
Athens of a day, was invited to Goethe's tea parties and had 
his drawings praised. Meantime in Weimar in the midst 
of the parties and the novel-reading on easy sofas, the grim 
future looked in upon him, and like a good youth he set him- 
self as of old toward worthy plans and resolutions, which as 
of old he was never to keep. Among these resolutions was a 
solemn project of entering the law. He returned to England 
at length and took chambers in Hare Court, Temple. How he 
liked it is not hard to guess. He sketched himself seated on 



INTRODUCTION vii 

his high stool, with his blue coat, his decrepit client, and his 
little clerk bringing five huge volumes up a ladder to him. 
"This lawyer's preparatory education," he writes, "is cer- 
tainly one of the most cold-blooded, prejudiced pieces of in- 
vention that ever a man was slave to. . . . The sun won't 
shine into Tapprell's chambers, and the high stools don't 
blossom and bring forth buds." We find him taking trips 
to Paris now and then to relieve the tedium, making jaunts 
into the country, and once across to Cornwall to forward an 
election canvass. 

In 1832 he came of age and inherited a fortune of something 
like £500 a year. The failure of an Indian investment, 
however, together with gambling and two unhappy newspaper 
ventures with his stepfather, caused him to lose it all, and 
left him after a year or two reduced to the necessity of earn- 
ing his bread. But "if thou hast never been a fool," as he 
wrote in after years, "be sure thou wilt never be a wise man ; " 
and the experience gained, of life and doings of every sort, 
stayed with him on into the years and entered into his books. 
Indeed the extent to which Thackeray embodies his experi- 
ence in his writings is one of the most notable things about his 
work. Memories of these early years appear in " Pendennis," 
"Lovel the Widower," "The Newcomes," and elsewhere. 

It was generally thought by his friends that Thackeray's 
final intention was to turn to his drawing as a profession and 
support ; but he seems to have meant all along to continue 
his writing, to try his fortune in literature. He continued 
his work for the Constitutional , — one of the papers that had 
lost him his money, — serving as the Paris correspondent ; 
and he began the connection with Fraser's Magazine that was 
to end so happily for him. In 1836 appeared his first book, 
a folio of lithographs, Flore et Zephyr, published in Paris and 
London at the same time. The sale of this was next to noth- 
ing. In the same year he married, at the residence of the 



viii ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

British ambassador in Paris, Isabella Shawe, the daughter of 
an Irish gentleman. During the next six years he wrote 
steadily for a living, stories, book reviews, art criticisms, poems 
and ballads, whatever the editors wished, his work appearing 
in Fraser^s, the New Monthly Magazine, Ainsworth^s, the 
Times, and the Westminster Review, over various pen-names, 
Michael Angelo Titmarsh, Charles Yellowplush, George" 
Fitz Boodle, and others, according to his fancy. Perhaps 
his best story of this period is ''The Great Hoggarty Dia- 
mond." Thackeray's critical work, while not great criti- 
cism, was marked by charity, appreciation, and good sense, 
an easy insight and judgment, with a saving air of humor 
around it all. His attitude, however, is usually personal, 
surprisingly so in his reviews of French literature, consider- 
ing his familiarity with the Continental mind and taste. 
His serious poetry, though it lacks high charm and genius, 
and in its workmanship the stamp of high art, has neverthe- 
less a certain touch of real feeling, and succeeds at times in 
making the sentiment effective, — as, for instance, in the 
"Cane-Bottomed Chair." 

Thackeray's married life was for a time of the happiest. 
But from the illness attending the birth of the third child, 
Mrs. Thackeray passed into the disease that never left her ; 
she fell into a great mental depression which finally called 
for constant oversight, and Thackeray's home was broken up. 
Years after, in that beautiful spirit of his, he wrote : "Though 
my marriage was a wreck, as you know, I would do it over 
again, for behold Love is the crown and completion of all 
earthly good." Still young, for he was under thirty, Thack- 
eray found himself with the woman he loved lost to him, 
his home life gone, and his children taken away. He took 
up his old life again, and lived for a while among his Bo- 
hemian friends, at the clubs and eating-houses, working for 
Fraser's and for Punch, and pubhshing in 1842 his "Irish 



INTRODUCTION ix 

Sketchbook." In 1844 he went with a party of friends — 
The Peninsular and Oriental Company furnishing the ticket — 
to the East. We have the record of his trip in " From Cornhill 
to Grand Cairo." 

Meantime his contributions to Punch were going on, — poems, 
ballads, burlesques, mock histories, — whatever sprang from 
the almost animal spirits of that humor and wit of his. Many 
of these Thackeray himself illustrated. He could never have 
been a great artist, perhaps ; that is not the question. But 
his drawing, though not artistic, not even correct always, 
does succeed in its primary purpose : it is interpretative, and 
characteristic of the subject matter, and full of life. It was 
almost wholly the gift of the illustrator rather than of the 
larger artist. "Barry Lyndon" appeared in 1844 in Eraser^ s 
with moderate success, and in Punch two years later the first 
of the famous Snoh papers. These were busy years with 
Thackeray ; but in spite of the fact that he worked steadily 
and unremittingly, and was well enough known among edi- 
tors and authors, he met with a persistent failure to hit the 
public taste. 

Then at last, in January, 1847, when he was thirty-six, came 
the first installment of the book that was to establish him in 
the popular applause, "Vanity Fair." '*' Vanity Fair " tri- 
umphed in spite of the public taste rather than because of it. 
Here was a novel without a hero ; with a comfortable, de- 
voted little heroine, too truly feminine in some respects to be 
palatable, and after all scarcely so much the heroine as her 
wicked little friend, Becky Sharp. The satire, the power, 
the truth of the book, told in the end, however, as must have 
happened sooner or later, and stamped it as one of the greatest 
novels in the language. "Vanity Fair " appeared in twenty- 
four numbers, and long before the last it was evident that 
Thackeray might assume his place as one of the great writers 
of the day. Society took him up, and his life, already so busy 



X ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

and varied, became fuller than ever. "Pendennis" began in 
the autumn of 1848, four months after the last number of 
" Vanity Fair," and continued the author's success. The field 
in "Pendennis" is more of youth and illusion than that in 
*' Vanity Fair," but the method and class of the work is the same. 

Thackeray was now in fairly easy circumstances, but was 
far too generous with his money not to need more of it than 
he had. He decided, therefore, in 1851 to improve his for- 
tunes by coming forward as a lecturer, and to that end began 
to read for his "English Humorists of the Eighteenth Cen- 
tury." The lectures were in due time deUvered in London 
at Willis's Rooms, to "innumerable noteworthy people," and 
met with great success. During that year, they were given 
at Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, and elsewhere. The next 
year "Henry Esmond" appeared. Thackeray had received 
£1000 for the book before it was printed; but, strangely 
enough, it met with ill success. It was variously described as 
"tedious and long," "too much history and too little story," 
and "the most uncomfortable book you can imagine." 
Such, however, has not been the verdict of time. "Henry 
Esmond " as a work of art is Thackeray's greatest book. The 
scheme of a memoir form precluded the lengthy moralizings 
that burden so much of his writing ; the characters are painted 
swiftly and well ; and the situations arising from their inter- 
relations and contact are developed with fine dramatic brevity 
and color. His natural inclination toward the age, and the 
material gathered in working up the "Humorists," gave 
Thackeray perfect ease in the period and atmosphere, and 
set the eighteenth century breathing before us. 

Thackeray, his health being very uncertain, now felt more 
and more the wisdom of putting by for his "little girls at 
home," and hit on the American tour as a means toward this 
end. He sailed October 30, 1852, with Arthur Hugh Clough 
and Lowell. There seems to have been some contention be- 



INTRODUCTION xi 

tween Boston and New York as to which should welcome first 
the distinguished visitor. Fortune arranged the matter by 
having him land in Boston and make his debut as a lecturer 
in New York. His impressions of America were very unlike 
those recorded by Dickens, who had repaid the enthusiasm 
and hospitality of the Americans by publishing criticisms 
both petty and insular. How different is the tone of Thack- 
eray's letters ! He didn't expect to like the people as he 
does, he writes back, and he finds many most pleasant com- 
panions, natural and well-read, and well-bred too, and sup- 
poses that he is none the worse pleased because everybody 
has read his books and praises his lectures. So also the rush 
and restlessness pleases him, and he likes, for a little, the dash 
of the stream. "It is all praise and kindness." His tour 
included Boston, New York, Washington, Richmond, Charles- 
ton, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and perhaps other places, and 
the profits of the" trip, though not definitely known, were satis- 
factory, — in a letter he speaks of counting on £2500 at least. 
Early in the next year Thackeray was in England again, 
in Paris, then in Baden, working on "The Newcomes." In it 
the manner and the treatment are the same as in "Vanity 
Fair," though, on the one hand, "The Newcomes" is more 
digressive and less interesting, and, on the other, the portrait 
of Colonel Newcome surpasses all the former portraits in 
depth and beauty. After "The Newcomes" Thackeray 
began his arrangements for another American venture and 
set about the composition of his lectures on the "Four 
Georges," which were to make their first appearance in Amer- 
ica instead of in London. Then followed a repetition, but 
even more successful, of the earlier visit to America ; every- 
body loving Thackeray, and Thackeray loving everybody, 
lecturing, dining, playing with his host's children wherever he 
might be, or writing to his own. "What charming letters 
Anne writes me!" — this from Savannah, Georgia. "St. 



xii ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

Valentine brought me a delightful letter from her too, and 
from the dear old mother, and whether it's the comfort of 
this house, or the pleasure of having an hour's chat with you, 
or the sweet clean bed I had last night, and undisturbed rest 
and good breakfast — altogether I think I have no right to 
grumble at my lot, and am very decently happy." Upon his 
return home the lectures on the Georges, although consider- 
ably criticized by English reviewers for making too free with 
the sanctity of kings, were repeated with triumphant success 
in London, Oxford, and other towns, and brilliantly in Edin- 
burgh, where he had " three per cent of the whole population." 

In the summer of 1857, Thackeray sought to add a new 
interest to his life : he entered politics. The city of Oxford 
was the chosen constituency, his party the Liberal. His 
speeches delivered in the canvass were regarded as worthy of 
him, tactful, marked by good sense and courtesy ; in them he 
advocated an extension of the suffrage and a inore democratic 
distribution of offices according to merit rather than rank. 
The speech he delivered when the returns showed that he 
was beaten, was, as might have been expected, full of taste 
and fine feeling, and is worthy of reading even yet. 

Freed from politics, he began a new serial, the "Virgin- 
ians"; in which, though not so successfully as in the first 
instance, he used again the material compiled for his lec- 
tures and reintroduced many of the figures in "Henry 
Esmond." Like Balzac he was fond of taking his people on 
from book to book ; he even planned at this time to reverse 
the scheme by laying a plot in the time of Henry V and 
bringing upon the stage of action the ancestors of all his 
characters. The plan never materialized. It was while the 
"Virginians" was in progress that the much written of 
quarrel between Thackeray and Dickens arose. 

This coolness, though it may have been rooted in a 
smouldering jealousy unperceived of either, had its immedi- 



INTRODUCTION xiii 

ate origin in an article that appeared in Town Talk. The 
author, Edmund Yates, made numerous statements about 
Thackeray, of a more or less personal character and in 
thoroughly bad taste. Thackeray, as was natural enough, 
resented them. Yates sought Dickens's advice, and Thack- 
eray thought, and others with him, that Dickens took in the 
matter an unfriendly attitude toward Thackeray. The 
estrangement between the two great men did not end until 
a week before Thackeray's death, when they met on the 
steps of the Athenaeum Club and shook hands. ^ 

In 1859 -the Cornhill Magazine was established, with 
Thackeray as editor. He contributed to the first issue an 
installment of ''Lovel the Widower" — a story more inter- 
esting perhaps for its personal reminiscences of Thackeray 
than for its own sake — and what is more important, he wrote 
as editor the initial number of the "Roundabout Papers." 
The success of the magazine was overwhelming ; more than 
110,000 copies of the first issue were sold, and Thackeray 
went off to Paris as happy as a child. His long service in 
journaHsm, his humor, his wit, his knowledge of human na- 
ture, fitted him admirably for the editor's chair, though his 
rather unmethodical habits and his too kind heart made the 
business heavy at times. Whimsically and charmingly in 
"Thorns in the Cushion" he tells us the Editor's woes. "At 
night I come home and take my letters up to bed (not daring 
to open them), and in the morning I find one, two, three 
Thorns on my pillow." The people that resent the thrusts 
and the jests of the essayist, they are some of the thorns; 
and worst of all, the little governess with the sick mother 
and the brothers and sisters that look to her, the editor can 
so easily help them by taking the poem. And how he hopes 
that it may be possible, but it won't do ; and sometimes — 
though he himself does not tell us this — the piece is accepted, 

1 For fuller discussion see the "Life " by Merivale and Marzials, pp. 195-198. 



xiv ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

paid for from his own pocket, and never appears, but strays 
somehow later on into the waste basket. To be himself and 
a sharp editor at the same moment is hard for him. 

"Lovel the Widower" was followed by "The Adventures of 
Philip on his Way Through the World," a book full of dis- 
cursiveness and seeming fatigue, and no more admirable 
than its predecessor. But it is good to see the old power and 
charm return more or less in his last book, "Dennis Duval," 
— in what we have of it, for he never lived to finish the story. 
Meanwhile the " Roundabout Papers," — "On a Lazy Boy," 
"On Two Children in Black," "On Screens in Dining Rooms," 
on all manner of subjects, charming, delicate, finished, with 
the exact turn that only Thackeray could give them, continued 
to appear till his death. His health by this time had been 
going from bad to worse, the struggles and sorrows and labors 
of his life had aged him greatly. He felt it, and already 
thought of himself as an old man ; it was noticed afterwards 
that the last papers in the Cornhill had been almost like 
sermons. On the morning of the 24th of December, Christ- 
mas Eve, 1863, he was found lying dead, his arms and face 
rigid, as if he had died in great pain. 

Thackeray's work long before his death had already placed 
him among the great EngHsh writers. The novels, perhaps, 
head the list of his achievements: "The Yellowplush Corre- 
,spondence," 1838; "Catherine," 1839; "A Shabby Genteel 
Story," 1840; "The History of Samuel Titmarsh" and "The 
Great Hoggarty Diamond," 1841 ; "The Luck of Barry 
Lyndon," 1844; "Vanity Fair," 184 7-1 848; " The History of 
Pendennis," 1848-1850; "The History of Henry Esmond, 
Esq., A Colonel in service of Her Majesty Queen Anne. 
Written by Himself," 1852; "The Newcomes," 1853-1855; 
"The Virginians. A Tale of the Last Century," 1857-1859; 
"Lovel the Widower," i860; "The Adventures of Philip," 
1861-1862; "Dennis Duval," never finished, but published 



INTRODUCTION xv 

after Thackeray's death, 1864. There are several books of 
travel and description: "The Paris Sketchbook," 1840; 
"The Irish Sketchbook," 1843; "Little Travels and Road- 
side Sketches," 1 844-1 845 ; "Punch in the East," 1845; 
"From London to Grand Cairo," 1846. The "Ballads" 
appeared first in book form in 1855. Besides the novels, the 
travels, and the poems, there were the great number of mis- 
cellaneous writings that appeared in Punch, in Fraser^s, the 
Cornhill, and elsewhere: the review of Carlyle's "French 
Revolution," 1837; " Fitz-Boodle's Confessions," 1842- 
1843; "Miss Tickletoby's Lectures on English History," 
1842; "The Snobs of England," 1846-1847; "Punch's 
Prize Novelists," 1847; "The Proser," 1850; "Mr. Brown's 
Letters to a Young Man About Town," 1849; "English 
Humorists of the Eighteenth Century," 1851-1853; "The 
Four Georges," delivered in 1855, published in the Cornhill, 
i860, in book form, 1861 ; and the " Roundabout Papers" in 
the Cornhill, 1 860-1 863. He was also the author of several 
Christmas books of different kinds: "Mrs. Perkins's Ball," 
1846; "Our Street," 1847; "Doctor Birch and his Young 
Friends," 1848; "Rebecca and Rowena," 1849; "The Kickle- 
burys on the Rhine," 1850 ; "The Rose and the Ring," 1854. 
Thackeray's first excellence, it seems to me, lies in his deep 
humanity, the sane and ripened heart and the vision that made 
him feel and understand, the humor and buoyancy and the 
keen wit that hover about his thought. His faults, at the 
worst, consist in a lack of art, oftentimes in detailed construc- 
tion, as in "The Newcomes," "Pendennis," or even in that 
most nearly perfect of his books, "Henry Esmond"; an 
overwillingness to moralize and sentimentalize, as in "The 
Newcomes," especially among the novels, and in many of 
the miscellanies ; and a failure to make the adequate revision. 
His virtues lie in his capacity for sympathy, as in the beau- 
tiful portrait of Colonel Newcome, or of the death of my Lord 



XVI ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

in "Henry Esmond," or the portrait of Goldsmith; his 
shrewd insight into motives and temperaments, such as we 
find, for instance, in his treatment of Beatrix and the Stuart, 
or of the subtle quality of the Viscountess's love ; his power 
to take the reader into his confidence, his balance and absence 
of pose or affectation, his culture, his swift and moving charac- 
ters and situations. 

In appearance Thackeray was tall, six feet four, and broad- 
chested. The thick hair, turning early to gray, the ample 
brow, the broken nose, and the clear eyes, tended to give to 
his head, which he carried high, an air of dignity, perhaps 
even of supercilious coldness; but the mouth was sensitive 
and mild, and his whole manner and expression, when he 
spoke, kindly charming, full of the delicate variations of his 
many-sided character and moods. 

As a man he was all heart and life ; loving and needing 
love; careless with his money and his kindness, generous 
and loyal ; sensitive and reserved ; and filled, as Trollope 
said, "with an almost equally exaggerated sympathy with 
the joys and troubles of individuals around him " ; a Bohemian 
all his days, with an eternal child in his breast, a man who 
loved to lounge and talk and dream, to live intensely and fully, 
indifferent to the prudence of gain and loss. There was talk 
once of his being a snob and a cynic, but it is all forgotten. 
"He is become a great man, I am told," writes his friend Ed- 
ward Fitzgerald, "goes to Holland House, and to Devonshire 
House ; and for some reason or other will not write one word 
to me. But I am sure this is not because he is asked to Hol- 
land House ; " and we, too, know now that, whatever the 
reason might have been, it could not have been because he 
was asked to Holland House; he was no snob. And he was 
no cynic ; we know now the depth of the loving faith that kept 
itself sweet in the face of the foibles and weakness and folly 
that he read so well. Indeed, strange as it may seem at 



INTRODUCTION xvii 

first thought, the keynote to his character was probably to be 
found in sentiment rather than in cynicism. 

Thackeray in poHtics was a Liberal. His religion is charac- 
teristic of the man ; under a due reserve, poetic faith in the 
broader Christian ideas, and the prayer that he might never 
write a word inconsistent with the love of God or the love of 
man, that he might always speak the truth with his pen, 
and ''that he might never be actuated by a love of greed — 
For the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord." 

THE ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

There are two views of history that may be taken in con- 
nection with the "English Humorists." The first demands 
that history to be good must be based on the actual fact, that 
it must be literal to be true, and that thereupon rests the 
standard of excellence. The other opinion, in view of the fact 
that all the points about a subject may never be obtained, that 
witnesses vary, that the so-called fact itself is often but half 
the reality, that, briefly, truth is in a well, — the other opin- 
ion holds that the office of history is to be morally creative ; 
which means that we should be made to feel, to take sides, 
to be moved, to act, and through this exercise to get charac- 
ter development ; and insists that to this end the literal data 
may be sacrificed, if necessary, in the interest of vividness 
and power. Both these theories apply to the "Humorists." 
But while Thackeray in his treatment observes no small 
amount of accuracy, his work in the main implies, as many 
literary histories do, the second point of view rather than the 
first. 

The fundamental appeal of the book is its humanity. 
Thackeray's life and temperament, his broad experience and 
broader sympathies, fit him for the task of reviewing such 
widely diverse lives and temperaments as the twelve humorists 



xviii ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

exhibit. We are made to live with the characters, to wor- 
ship, despise, and pursue them as Thackeray, in his vital 
conception of them, chooses to direct us. And this, though 
individually it may be harsh, as in the case of Swift, or 
lenient, as in the case of Pope, is yet valuable to the race at 
large by reason of the vividness and power that the impulse 
of Thackeray's conception puts into it. 

It may be said that as criticism the whole strain of the 
essays is, like much of English criticism, more personal than 
critical, based more on the man than on the work. Conti- 
nental criticism tends to separate the two, but the English 
tendency has been, up to the last few years, to insist on the 
man and his art as one. The essays on the humorists are 
intended, however, more as studies, as life portraits, than as 
literary criticism. Their lives are taken up not fact by fact, 
year by year, but from this side and from that, shifted, turned, 
quoted, questioned, drawn from the centuries and presented 
as Thackeray wills them to be. The result in this case 
justifies the method. There is a hovering over the subject, 
in a manner characteristic of all Thackeray's work, a happy 
all-roundness of impression that is in its way as definite as 
any mere accuracy could be. 

Apart from the method of treatment, it would appear that 
all the men chosen might not be regarded ordinarily as humor- 
ists. The answer to that is to be found in the opening para- 
graph : "The humorous writer professes to awaken and direct 
your love, your pity, your kindness, — your scorn for un- 
truth, pretension, imposture — your tenderness for the weak, 
the poor, the oppressed, the unhappy. He takes upon him- 
self to be the week-day preacher, so to speak." From that 
standpoint all the twelve may be admitted to the company. 

The reviews of the day were generally favorable to the 
essays, though there is of course the usual difference of opin- 
ion among the critics. 



INTRODUCTION xix 

"Those who came once to hear and see the author of 
* Vanity Fair,'" says the Spectator,^ "and to watch at a safe 
distance the terrible satirist, whose dressing-gown, Hke that 
of the old Frankish king, was trimmed with the scalps of 
slaughtered snobs, were attracted to continue their attend- 
ance to the close of the course by the engaging manner of 
the lecturer, just sufficiently elevated above the frank fa- 
miliarity of the best society, by his expressive but always 
pleasant voice, by his unconcealed desire to make a favorable 
impression upon his audience, no less than by the sense, the 
sound feeling, the delicate irony, the profound human expe- 
rience, or the fascinating style of the lectures. . . . Persons 
whose tastes and studies have led them to our older literature 
and history, no less than those whose training is emphatically 
modern, will consider that Mr. Thackeray has placed far too 
high the general moral and intellectual level of the eighteenth 
century. Particular judgments will be disputed, and the 
highest poetical excellence will certainly not be awarded with- 
out an appeal from Mr. Thackeray's decision." 

The Examiner ^ for the same month accuses him of being 
too fond of looking up to great imaginary heights or of looking 
down from the same ; and of coaxing, patronizing, and abusing 
his heroes, or putting them on top shelves high and out-of-the- 
way. "We could not for the life of us have recognized our 
old friend Addison in the grand, calm, pale, isolated altitude 
which he is here shown o£f in." The Athenceum ^ regards the 
essays as pleasant but of no deep value, though it hints at 
valuable treasures here and there among the shallows. The 
critic also regards the estimate of Addison as rather over- 
elaborate in its praise, and fancies the judgment of Congreve 
rather hard. "Gay* is treated with that 'curious felicity' 
which implies no ordinary intimacy with, and employment 

^Spectator, July, 1853. 2 xhe Examiner, July, 1853. 

3 The Athenceum, June 18, 1853. ^ The Athenceum, June 25, 1853. 



XX ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

of, his subject on the part of the author. . . . Perhaps the 
figure in this gallery on which our lecturer has bestowed his 
utmost pains is that of Pope. Here Mr. Thackeray rises into 
a greater refinement of distinction, into a graver sympathy 
with his subject, than is his wont. . . . We can point to 
Mr. Thackeray's appreciation of Sterne with entire approval." 

Blackwoods ^ is less kind. ''We do not see in it a fair, hon- 
est, truth-searching and truth-declaring spirit ; yet the style 
is so captivating, so insinuating in its deceiving plainness, so 
suggestive of every evil in its simplicity, so alluring onward, 
even when the passages we have read have left unpleasant 
impressions, that it is impossible to lay down the book." 

The Westminster Review:^ ''Whatever difference of opin- 
ion may arise between the writer and the reader out of Mr. 
Thackeray's views concerning Addison, or Steele, or Sterne, 
or Swift, there is no man of taste who will not recognize in 
these sketches a master's touch, the work of a true humor- 
ist, and of a man accomplished in his art." 

The American journals repeat the praise, both of the lec- 
tures and of their delivery. "The lecture was upon Swift," 
wrote the critic in the New York Times for Saturday, Novem- 
ber 20, 1852, "and it was the most exquisite piece of biographi- 
cal criticism and characterization we ever heard or read. . . . 
Its sentiments were the perfection of common sense; its 
language the extreme of simplicity; its arrangement the 
unstudied method of a thoroughly cultivated mind. There 
was not an attempt at wit or humor in it ; and yet it over- 
flowed with both. It was made up mainly of the simplest, 
most direct statements of fact; yet they were all full of 
humor, beauty, eloquence." 

1 Blackwoods, October, 1853. 2 j/^ Westminsier Review, July, 1853. 



INTRODUCTION ' xxi 



COMPARATIVE CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF THE 
TWELVE HUMORISTS 

It will be observed that with the two exceptions of Prior and Sterne, 
Thackeray takes up the Humorists in approximately chronological order. 

1664 Prior born. 
1667 Swift born. 
1670 Congreve born. 
1672 Addison born. 

Steele born. 
1685 Gay born. 
1688 Pope born, 

1692 Swift secretary to Sir William Temple. 
Congreve contributes to Dryden's Juvenal. 

1693 Congreve's Old Bachelor and The Double Dealer. 

1694 Swift ordained. 

1695 Congreve's Love for Love. 

1696 Steele is made secretary to Baron Cutts. 

1697 Hogarth born. 
Congreve's Mourning Bride. 

Addison is granted a pension for travel on the continent. 
Prior made secretary for the negotiations for the treaty of Ryswick. 
Swift's Battle of the Books written ; pubhshed 1704. 
1700 Congreve's The Way of the World. 

Steele's Christian Hero published ; The Funeral acted at Drury 

Lane. 
Swift made Doctor of Divinity at Dublin. 

1 704 Swift's Tale of a Tub. 

Addison's Campaign, in honor of the battle of Blenheim. 

1705 Swift goes up to London for three years. 

1706 Steele made gentleman waiter to Prince George of Denmark. 
Addison made undersecretary of state. 

1707 Fielding born. 

Swift intrusted with the commission to obtain the grant of Queen 
Anne's bounty for Ireland. 

1708 Addison M.P. from Lostwithiel. 

1709 Addison secretary to Wharton, lord lieutenant of Ireland. 
Pope's Pastorals, in Tonson's Miscellanies. 



xxii ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

Addison M.P. from Malmesbury, continued until death. 
The Tatler begun by Steele, Addison contributes. 

1 710 Congreve publishes his Collected Works. 
Swift becomes a Tory. 

Addison defends the Whigs in the Whig Examiner. 
Steele made Commissioner of Stamps. 

1 71 1 Prior in Paris negotiates the Peace of Utrecht. 
Gay's Present State of Wit. 

Addison and Steele's Spectator. 
Pope's Essay on Criticism. 
Swift's Conduct of the Allies. 

1 71 2 Prior made Plenipotentiary at Paris. 
Pope enters Addison's circle. 

Pope's Messiah appears in the Spectator. 
Pope's Rape of the Lock (first version). 

1 7 13 Sterne born. 

Steele begins the Guardian. 

Pope publishes Windsor Forest, and becomes associated with the 

Tories. 
Pope leaves Addison's circle and forms an intimacy with Swift, 

Gay, and others. 
Gay contributes to the Guardian. 
Steele elected M.P. from Stockbridge. 
Steele starts a Whig paper, The Englishman. 
Addison's Cato is presented at Drury Lane. 
Swift is made Dean of St. Patrick's ; the Journal to Stella is already 

begun. 

1 7 14 Congreve given the secretaryship of Jamaica. 
Addison contributes to the revived Spectator. 

Steele writes the Crisis in favor of the Hanoverian succession; 
is expelled from the House of Commons for seditious libel; 
publishes the Poetical Miscellanies ; on the accession of George I 
is promoted to the managership of Drury Lane, made Deputy 
Lieutenant from Middlesex, and given other offices. 

Gay's Shepherd's Week is published, dedicated to Bolingbroke. 

Pope's Rape of the Lock, in its fuller form. 

Swift's Public Spirit of the Whigs in reply to Steele's Crisis. 

1 71 5 Swift, upon the death of Queen Anne and the fall of the ministry, 

leaves for Ireland. 
Addison's Drummer unsuccessfully produced. 
Steele M.P. from Boroughbridge, and knighted. 



INTRODUCTION xxiii 

First volume of Pope's Iliad (completed, 1720). 
Prior imprisoned ; released 171 7. 
1 716 Addison produces the Freeholder, and is married to the Countess of 
Warwick. 

1 718 Addison retires from office. 

Folio edition of Prior's poems published. 

1 719 Death of Addison. 

Defoe publishes Robinson Crusoe. 

1720 Gay's P(7ew5. 

1 721 Death of Prior. 
Smollett born. 

1722 Steele's Conscious Lovers produced at Drury Lane. 

1724 Gay produces the Captives. 

1725 Pope's translation of the Odyssey, and edition of Shakespeare. 

1726 Swift's Gulliver's Travels. 
Hogarth's illustrations for Hudihras. 

1727 Swift makes his last visit to England. 
Gay's Fables, first series. 

1728 Gay's Beggar's Opera acted at Lincoln's Inn Fields. 
Pope publishes the Dunciad. 

Goldsmith born. 

Hogarth paints scenes from the Beggar's Opera. 

1729 Pope issues an enlarged edition of the Dunciad. 
Gay's Polly, sequel to the Beggar's Opera, published. 
Death of Congreve. * 
Death of Steele. 

1730 Fielding's burlesque, Tom Thumb. 

1732 Hogarth's Harlot's Progress. 

Gay writes the libretto for Handel's Acis and Galatea. 
Death of Gay. 

1733 Gay's Achilles produced at Co vent Garden. 
Pope's Essay on Man and Moral Essays. 
Pope's Horace, First Satire of .Second Book. 

173s Hogarth's Rake's Progress and Southwark Fair. 

Pope's Works. 
1736 Fielding opens a theater in the Haymarket. 

1738 Gay's Fables, second series. 

1739 Smollett goes up with a play to London to make his for- 

tune. 

1740 Fielding a barrister in the Middle Temple. 
Sterne made curate of Buckden. 



XXIV ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

1 742 Fielding writes Joseph Andrews as a parody of Richardson's Pamela. 
Pope completes the Dunciad by a fourth book. 

1743 Fielding's Miscellanies, containing his satire, Jonathan Wild the 

Great. 

1744 Death of Pope. 

1 745 Hogarth's Marriage a la Mode. 
Death of Swift. 

1748 Smollett's Roderick Random. 

1 749 Fielding's Tom Jones. 

1750 Fielding's Inquiry into the Increase of Robbers in London. 

1 75 1 Fielding's Amelia. 

Smollett's Peregrine Pickle and History of England. 

1752 Goldsmith goes to Edinburgh to study medicine. 

1753 Smollett's Ferdinand Count Fathom. 

1754 Death of Fielding in Lisbon. 

1755 Goldsmith travels in Europe ; later is destitute in London. 

1756 Smollett founds The Critical Review. 

1757 Goldsmith writes for the Monthly Review. 

1759 Goldsmith's Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning. 

1760 Sterne's Tristram Shandy, Y oh. I and 11. 

Sterne goes to London, second edition of Tristram Shandy, Sterne 
given the perpetual curacy of Coxwold. 

1 761 Goldsmith and Johnson meet. 

^terne's Tristram Shandy, Vols. Ill, IV, V, and VI. 

1762 Smollett's Sir Launcelot Greaves. 
Sterne goes to the continent. 
Goldsmith's Citizen of the World. 

1763 Smollett goes to the continent. 

1764 Goldsmith's Traveller. 
Death of Hogarth. 

1765 Sterne's Tristram Shandy, Vols. VII and VIII. 

1766 Smollett publishes his Travels. 

Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield sold to the publisher. 

1767 Sterne's Tristram Shandy, Vol. IX. 

1768 Goldsmith's Good-Natiired Man. 
Death of Sterne. 

Sterne's Sentimental Journey issued. 

1769 Goldsmith's History of Rome. 

1770 Goldsmith's Life of Parnell, Life of Bolingbroke, and The Deserted 

Village. 

1 771 Smollett's Humphrey Clinker. 



INTRODUCTION xxv 

Goldsmith's History of England. 
Death of Smollett. 

1773 Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer. 

1774 Goldsmith's Retaliation y and Animated Nature, and History of 

Greece. 
Death of Goldsmith. 



THE ENGLISH HUMORISTS 
OF THE EIGHTEENTH 
' CENTURY* 



SWIFT 

In treating of the English Humorists of the past age, it is of 
the men and of their Hves, rather than of their books, that I 
ask permission to speak to you ; and in doing so, you are aware 
that I cannot hope to entertain you with a merely humorous 
or facetious story. Harlequin without his mask is known to S 
present a very sober countenance, and was himself, the story 
goes, the melancholy patient whom the doctor advised to go 
and see Harlequin f — a man full of cares and perplexities 
like the rest of us, whose Self must always be serious to him, 
under whatever mask or disguise or uniform he presents itio 
to the public. And as all of you here must needs be grave 
when you think of your own past and present, you will not 
look to find, in the histories of those whose lives and feelings 
I am going to try and describe to you, a story that is other- 
wise than serious, and often very sad. If Humor only meant 15 
laughter, you would scarcely feel more interest about humor- 
ous writers than about the private life of poor Harlequin just 

* The notes to these lectures were chiefly written by James Hannay. A few 
corrections and additions, chiefly due to later investigations, are now inserted; 
for which the publishers have to thank Mr. Austin Dobson, Mr. Sidney Lee, 
and Mr. L. Stephen. 

t The anecdote is frequently told of our performer John Rich (i682?-i76i), 
who first introduced pantomimes, and himself acted Harlequin. 

I 



2 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

mentioned, who possesses in common with these the power 
of making you laugh. But the men regarding whose Uves 
and stories your kind presence here shows that you have cu- 
riosity and sympathy, appeal to a great number of our other 
5 faculties, besides our mere sense of ridicule. The humorous 
writer professes to awaken and direct your love, your pity, 
your kindness — your scorn for untruth, pretension, impos- 
ture — your tenderness for the weak, the poor, the oppressed, 
the unhappy. To the best of his means and ability he com- 

lo ments on all the ordinary actions and passions of life almost. 
He takes upon himself to be the week-day preacher, so to 
speak. Accordingly, as he finds, and speaks, and feels the 
truth best, we regard him, esteem him — sometimes love 
him. And, as his business is to mark other people's Hves and 

15 peculiarities, we moralize upon his life when he has gone — 
and yesterday's preacher becomes the text for to-day's 
sermon. 

Of English parents, and of a good English family of clergy- 
men,* Swift was born in Dublin in 1667, seven months after 

20 the death of his father, who had come to practice there as 
a lawyer. The boy went to school at ICilkenny, and after- 

* He was from a younger branch of the Swifts of Yorkshire. His grand- 
father, the Reverend Thomas Swift, vicar of Goodrich, in Herefordshire, suf- 
fered for his loyalty in Charles I's time. That gentleman married Elizabeth 
Dryden, a member of the family of the poet. Sir Walter Scott gives, with his 
characteristic minuteness in such points, the exact relationship between these 
famous men. Swift was "the son of Dryden's second cousin." Swift, too, was 
the enemy of Dryden's reputation. Witness the "Battle of the Books" : — "The 
diflFerence was greatest among the horse," says he of the moderns, "where every 
private trooper pretended to the command, from Tasso and Milton to Dryden 
and Withers." And in Poetry, a Rhapsody, he advises the poetaster to — 

"Read all the Prefaces of Dryden, 
For these our critics much confide in, 
Though merely writ, at first for filhng, 
To raise the volume's price a shilling." 

"Cousin Swift, you will never be a poet," was the phrase of Dryden to his kins- 
man, which remained alive in a memory tenacious of such matters. 



SWIFT 3 

wards to Trinity College, Dublin, where he got a degree with 
difl&culty, and was wild, and witty, and poor. In 1688, by, 
the recommendation of his mother. Swift was received into 
the family of Sir William Temple, who had known Mrs. 
Swift in Ireland. He left his patron in 1694, and the next 5 
year took orders in Dubhn. But he threw up the small 
Irish preferment which he got and returned to Temple, in 
whose family he remained until Sir William's death in 1699. 
His hopes of advancement in England failing. Swift returned 
to Ireland, and took the living of Laracor. Hither he in- 10 
vited Esther Johnson,* Temple's natural daughter, with whom 
he had contracted a tender friendship while they were both 
dependants of Temple's. And with an occasional visit to 
England, Swift now passed nine years at home. 

In 1 7 10 he came to England, and, with a brief visit to Ire- 15 
land, during which he took possession of his deanery of Saint 
Patrick, he now passed four years in England, taking the most 
distinguished part in the political transactions which ter- 
minated with the death of Queen Anne. After her death, 
his party disgraced, and his hopes of ambition over. Swift 20 
returned to Dublin, where he remained twelve years. In 
this time he wrote the famous ^'Drapier's Letters" and "Gul- 
liver's Travels." He married f Esther Johnson (Stella), and 
buried Esther Vanhomrigh (Vanessa), who had followed him 
to Ireland from London, where she had contracted a violent 25 

* "Miss Hetty" she was called in the family — where her face, and her dress, 
and Sir William's treatment of her, all made the real fact about her birth plain 
enough. Sir William left her a thousand pounds. [The statement that Esther 
Johnson was Temple's natural daughter, was first made by a writer in the Gentle- 
man's Magazine for 1757, who also asserted that Swift was Temple's natural 
son ; and that a discovery of their relationship was the secret of Swift's melan- 
choly. The statement about Swift is inconsistent with known dates. The story 
about Esther may be true, but it depends mainly upon late and anonymous 
evidence.] 

t The marriage is accepted by Swift's last biographer, Sir H. Craik. It was 
disbelieved by Forster, and cannot be regarded as certain. 



4 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

passion for him. In 1726 and 1727 Swift was in England, 
which he quitted for the last time on hearing of his wife's 
illness. Stella died in January 1728, and Swift not until 
1745, having passed the last five of the seventy-eight years 
5 of his Hfe with an impaired intellect, and keepers to watch 
him.* 

You know, of course, that Swift has had many biographers ; 
his life has been told by the kindest and most good-natured 
of men, Scott, who admires but can't bring himself to love 
10 him ; and by stout old Johnson,t who, forced to admit him 
into the company of poets, receives the famous Irishman, and 
takes off his hat to him with a bow of surly recognition, scans 
him from head to foot, and passes over to the other side of the 

* Sometimes, during his mental affliction, he continued walking about the 
house for many consecutive hours ; sometimes he remained in a kind of torpor. 
At times he would seem to struggle to bring into distinct consciousness, and 
shape into expression the intellect that lay smothering under gloomy obstruc- 
tion in him. A pier-glass, faUing by accident, nearly fell on him. He said he 
wished it had! He once repeated slowly several times, "I am what I am." 
The last thing he wrote was an epigram on the building of a magazine for arms 
and stores, which was pointed out to him as he went abroad during his mental 

disease : — 

"Behold a proof of Irish sense: 
Here Irish wit is seen : 
When nothing's left that's worth defense, 
They build a magazine !" 

t Besides these famous books of Scott's and Johnson's, there is a copious 
"Life" by Thomas Sheridan (Doctor Johnson's "Sherry"), father of Richard 
Brinsley, and son of that good-natured, clever Irish Doctor Thomas Sheridan, 
Swift's intimate, who lost his chaplaincy by so unluckily choosing for a text 
on the King's birthday, "Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof!" Not to 
mention less important works, there is also the Remarks on the Life and Writings 
of Doctor Jonathan Swift, by that polite and dignified writer, the Earl of Orrery. 
His Lordship is said to have striven for Uterary renown, chiefly that he might 
make up for the sUght passed on him by his father, who left his library away 
from him. It is to be feared that the ink he used to wash out that stain only 
made it look bigger. He had, however, known Swift, and corresponded with 
people who knew him. His work (which appeared in 1751) provoked a good 
deal of controversy, calling out, among other brochures, the interesting Observa- 
tions on Lord Orrery's Remarks, &c., of Doctor Delany. 



SWIFT 5 

street. Doctor (afterwards Sir W. R.) Wilde of Dublin,* 
who has written a most interesting volume on the closing 
years of Swift's life, calls Johnson "the most malignant of his 
biographers:" it is not easy for an English critic to please 
Irishmen — perhaps to try and please them. And yet John- 5 
son . truly admires Swift : Johnson dcfes not quarrel with 
Swift's change of politics, or doubt his sincerity of religion: 
about the famous Stella and Vanessa controversy the Doctor 
does not bear very hardly on Swift. But he could not give the 
Dean that honest hand of his ; the stout old man puts it into 10 
his breast, and moves off from him.f 

Would we have liked to live with him ? That is a question 
which, in dealing with these people's works, and thinking of 
their lives and peculiarities, every reader of biographies must 
put to himself. Would you have liked to be a friend of the 15 
great Dean ? I should like to have been Shakspeare's shoe- 
black — just to have lived in his house, just to have wor- 
shiped him — to have run on his errands, and seen that sweet 
serene face. I should like, as a young man, to have lived on 
Fielding's staircase in the Temple, and. after helping him up to 20 
bed perhaps, and opening his door with his latchkey, to have 



* Wilde's book was written on the occasion of the remains of Swift and 
Stella being brought to the light of day — a thing which happened in 1835, 
when certain works going on in St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, afforded an 
opportunity of their being examined. One hears with surprise of these skulls 
"going the rounds" of houses, and being made the objects of dilettante curiosity. 
The larynx of Swift was actually carried off ! Phrenologists had a low opin- 
ion of his intellect from the observations they took. 

Wilde traces the symptoms of ill-health in Swift, as detailed in his writings 
from time to time. He observes, likewise, that the skull gave evidence of 
"diseased action " of the brain during life — such as would be produced by an 
increasing tendency to "cerebral congestion." [In 1882 .Dr. Bucknell wrote 
an interesting article to show that Swift's disease was " labyrinthine vertigo," 
an affection of the ear, which would account for some of the symptoms.] 

t " He [Doctor Johnson] seemed to me to have an unaccountable prejudice 
against Swift ; for I once took the liberty to ask him if Swift had personally 
offended him, and he told me he had not." ^ Boswell's Tour to the Hebrides. 



6 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

shaken hands with him in the morning, and heard him talk 
and crack jokes over his breakfast and his mug of small beer. 
Who would not give something to pass a night at the club 
with Johnson, and Goldsmith, and James Boswell, Esquire, 
i of Auchinleck ? The charm of Addison's companionship and 
conversation has passed to us by fond tradition — but Swift? 
If you had been his inferior in parts (and that, with a great 
respect for all persons present, I fear is only very likely), his 
equal in mere social station, he would have bullied, scorned, 

lo and insulted you ; if, undeterred by his great reputation, you 
had met him like a man, he would have quailed before you,* 
and not had the pluck to reply, and gone home, and years 
after written a foul epigram about you — watched for you in 
a sewer, and come out to assail you with a coward's blow and 

IS a dirty bludgeon. If you had been a lord with a blue ribbon, 
who flattered his vanity, or could help his ambition, he would 
have been the most delightful company in the world. He 
would have been so manly, so sarcastic, so bright, odd, and 

* Few men, to be sure, dared this experiment, but yet their success was en- 
couraging. One gentleman made a point of asking the Dean whether his 
uncle Godwin had not given him his education. Swift, who hated that subject 
cordially, and, indeed, cared little for his kindred, said sternly, "Yes: he gave 
me the education of a dog." "Then, sir," cried the other, striking his fist on 
the table, "you have not the gratitude of a dog !" 

Other occasions there were when a bold face gave the Dean pause, even 
after his Irish almost-royal position was established. But he brought himself 
into greater danger on a certain occasion, and the amusing circumstances may 
be once more repeated here. He had unsparingly lashed the notable Dublin 
lawyer, Mr. Serjeant Bettesworth — 

"Thus at the bar, the booby Bettesworth, 
Though half-a-crown o'erpays his sweat's worth, 
Who knows in law nor text nor margent. 
Calls Singleton his brother-serjeant ! " 

The Serjeant, it is said, swore to have his life. He presented himself at the 
deanery. The Dean asked his name. "Sir, I am Serjeant Bett-es-worth." 

"In what regiment, pray?" asked Swift. 

A guard of volunteers formed themselves to defend the Dean at this time. 



SWIFT 7 

original, that you might think he had no object in view but 
the indulgence of his humor, and that he was the most reck- 
less simple creature in the world. How he would have torn 
your enemies to pieces for you ! and made fun of the Opposi- 
tion ! His servility was so boisterous that it looked like 5 
independence;* he would have done your errands, but with 
the air of patronizing you; and after fighting your battles, 
masked, in the street or the press, would have kept on his 
hat before your wife and daughters in the drawing-room, 
content to take that sort of pay for his tremendous services 10 
as a bravo, t 

He says as much himself in one of his letters to Bolingbroke : 

— ''All my endeavors to distinguish myself were only for 
want of a great title and fortune, that I might be used like a 
lord by those who have an opinion of my parts ; whether right 15 
or wrong is no great matter. And so the reputation of wit 

* "But, my Hamilton, I will never hide the freedom of my sentiments from 
you. I am much inclined to believe that the temper of my friend Swift might 
occasion his English friends to wish him happily and properly promoted at a 
distance. His spirit, for I would give it the softest name, was ever untractable. 
The motions of bis genius were often irregular. He assumed more the air of 
a patron than of a friend. He affected rather to dictate than advise." — Orrery. 

t "... An anecdote, which, though only told by Mrs. Pilkington, is well 
attested, bears, that the last time he was in London he went to dine with the 
Earl of Burlington, who was but newly married. The Earl, it is supposed, 
being willing to have a Httle diversion, did not introduce him to his lady, nor 
mention his name. After dinner said the Dean, 'Lady Burlington, I hear you 
can sing; sing me a song.' The lady looked on this unceremonious manner 
of asking a favor with distaste, and positively refused. He said, 'She should 
sing, or he would make her. Why, madam, I suppose you take me for one of 
your poor English hedge-parsons; sing when I bid you.' As the Earl did 
nothing but laugh at this freedom, the lady was so vexed that she burst into 
tears and retired. His first compliment to her when he saw her again was, 
' Pray, madam, are you as proud and ill-natured now as when I saw you last ? ' 
To which she answered with great good humor, 'No, Mr. Dean; I'll sing for 
you if you please.' From which time he conceived a great esteem for her." 

— Scott's Lije. "... He had not the least tincture of vanity in his conversa- 
tion. He was, perhaps, as he said himself, too proud to be vain. When he 
was polite, it was in a manner entirely his own. In his friendships he was 
constant and imdisguised. He was the same in his enmities." — Orrery. 



8 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

and great learning does the office of a blue ribbon or a coach- 
and-six." * 

Could there be a greater candor? It is an outlaw, who 
says, ''These are my brains; with these I'll win titles and 
5 compete with fortune. These are my bullets ; these I'll 
turn into gold;" and he hears the sound of coaches and six, 
takes the road like Macheath, and makes society stand and 
dehver. They are all on their knees before him. Down go 
my Lord Bishop's apron, and his Grace's blue ribbon, and 

lo my Lady's brocade petticoat in the mud. He eases the one 
of a living, the other of a patent place, the third of a little 
snug post about the Court, and gives them over to followers of 
his own. The great prize has not come yet. The coach with 
the miter and crozier in it, which he intends to have for his 

IS share, has been delayed on the way from Saint James's ; 
and he waits and waits until nightfall, when his runners come 
and tell him that the coach has taken a different road, and 
escaped him. So he fires his pistols into the air with a curse, 
and rides away into his own country, f 

* "I make no figure but at Court, where I affect to turn from a lord to the 
meanest of my acquaintances." — Journal to Stella. 

"I am plagued with bad authors, verse and prose, who send me their books 
and poems, the vilest I ever saw; but I have given their names to my man, 
never to let them see me." — Journal to Stella. 

The following curious paragraph illustrates the life of a courtier : — 

"Did I ever tell you that the Lord Treasurer hears ill with the left ear, just 
as I do ? . . . I dare not tell him that I am so, for fear he should think that I 
counterfeited to make my court!'' — Journal to Stella. 

t The war of pamphlets was carried on fiercely on one side and the other : 
and the Whig attacks made the Ministry Swift served very sore. Boling- 
broke laid hold of several of the Opposition pamphleteers, and bewails their 
" factitiousness " in the following letter: — 

Bolingbroke to the Earl of Strafford 

"Whitehall: July 2^rd, 17 12 

"It is a melancholy consideration that the laws of our country are too weak 
to punish effectually those factitious scribblers, who presume to blacken the 
brightest characters, and to give even scurrilous language to those who are 



SWIFT 9 

Swift's seems to me to be as good a name to point a moral 
or adorn a tale of ambition as any hero's that ever lived and 
failed. But we must remember that the morality was lax — 
that other gentlemen besides himself took the road in his 

in the first degrees of honor. This, my Lord, among others, is a symptom of 
the decayed condition of our Government, and serves to show how fatally we 
mistake licentiousness for liberty. All I could do was to take up Hart, the 
printer, to send him to Newgate, and to bind him over upon bail to be prose- 
cuted ; this I have done ; and if I can arrive at legal proof against the author, 
Ridpath, he shall have the same treatment." 

Swift was not behind his illustrious friend in this virtuous indignation. In 
the history of the last four years of the Queen, the Dean speaks in the most 
edifying manner of the licentiousness of the ^ress and the abusive language of 
the other party : — 

"It must be acknowledged that the bad practices of printers have been such 
as to deserve the severest animadversion from the public. . . . The adverse 
party, full of rage and leisure since their fall, and unanimous in their cause, 
employ a set of writers by subscription, who are well versed in all the topics of 
defamation, and have a style and genius leveled to the generality of their 
readers. . . . However, the mischiefs of the press were too exorbitant to be 
cured by such a remedy as a tax upon small papers, and a Bill for a much more 
effectual regulation of it was brought into the House of Commons, but so late 
in the session that there was no time to pass it, for there always appeared an 
unwillingness to cramp overmuch the liberty of the press." 

But to a clause in the proposed Bill, that the names of authors should be set 
to every printed book, pamphlet, or paper, his Reverence objects altogether; 
for, says he, "besides the objection to this clause from the practice of pious 
men, who, in publishing excellent writings for the service of religion, have chosen, 
out of an humble Christian spirit, to conceal their names, it is certain that all 
persons of true genius or knowledge have an invincible modesty and suspicion 
of themselves upon first sending their thoughts into the world." 

This "invincible modesty" was no doubt the sole reason which induced the 
Dean to keep the secret of the "Drapier's Letters" and a hundred humble 
Christian works of which he was the author. As for the Opposition, the Doctor 
was for dealing severely with them. He writes to Stella : — 

Journal. Letter XIX 

"London: March 2Sth, 1710-11 

"... We have let Guiscard be buried at last, after showing him pickled in 
a trough this fortnight for twopence apiece ; and the fellow that showed would 
point to his body and say, 'See, gentlemen, this is the wound that was given 
him by his Grace the Duke of Ormond; ' and 'This is the wound,' &c. ; and 



lO ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

day — that public society was in a strange disordered condi- 
tion, and the State was ravaged by other condottieri. The 
Boyne was being fought and won, and lost — the bells rung 
in William's victory, in the very same tone with which they 
5 would have pealed for James's. Men were loose upon politics, 
and had to shift for themselves. They, as well as old beliefs 
and institutions, had lost their moorings and gone adrift in 
the storm. As in the South Sea Bubble, almost everybody 
gambled ; as in the Railway mania — not many centuries 

lo ago — almost every one took- his unlucky share : a man of 
that time, of the vast talents and ambition of Swift, could 
scarce do otherwise than grasp at his prize, and make his 
spring at his opportunity. His bitterness, his scorn, his rage, 
his subsequent misanthropy are ascribed by some panegyrists 

IS to a deliberate conviction of mankind's un worthiness, and a 
desire to amend them by castigation. His youth was bitter, 
as that of a great genius bound down by ignoble ties, and 
powerless in a mean dependence; his age was bitter,* like 
that of a great genius, that had fought the battle and nearly 

20 won it, and lost it, and thought of it afterwards, writhing 
in a lonely exile. A man may attribute to the gods, if he 
likes, what is caused by his own fury, or disappointment, or 
self-will. What public man — what statesman projecting a 

then the show was over, and another set of rabble came in. 'Tis hard that our 
laws would not sufiFer us to hang his body in chains, because he was not tried ; 
and in the eye of the law every man is innocent till then. . . ." 

Journal. Letter XXVII 

"London: July 25th, 1711 
"I was this afternoon with Mr. Secretary at his office, and helped to hinder 
a man of his pardon, who was condemned for a rake. The Under-Secretary • 
was willing to save him; but I told the Secretary he could not pardon him 
without a favorable report from the Judge ; besides, he was a fiddler, and con- 
sequently a rogue, and deserved hanging for something else, and so he shall 
swing." 

* It was his constant practice to keep his birthday as a day of mourning. 



SWIFT II 

coup — what king determined on an invasion of his neigh- 
bor — what satirist meditating an onslaught on society or an 
individual, can't give a pretext for his move ? There was a 
French General the other day who proposed to march into 
this country and put it to sack and pillage, in revenge fors 
humanity outraged by our conduct at Copenhagen : there is 
always some excuse for men of the aggressive turn. They 
are of their nature warHke, predatory, eager for fight, plunder, 
dominion.* 

As fierce a beak and talon as ever struck — as strong a wing lo 
as ever beat, belonged to Swift. I am glad, for one, that 
fate wrested the prey out of his claws, and cut his wings and 
chained him. One can gaze, and not without awe and pity, 
at the lonely eagle chained behind the bars. 

That Swift was born at No. 7 Hoey's Court, Dublin, on the is 
30th November 1667, is a certain fact, of which nobody will 
deny the sister island the honor and glory ; but, it seems to 
me, he was no more an Irishman than a man born of English 
parents at Calcutta is a Hindoo, f Goldsmith was an Irish- 

* "These devils of Grub Street rogues, that write the Flying Post and Med- 
ley in one paper, will not be quiet. They are always mauling Lord Treasurer, 
Lord Bolingbroke, and me. We have the dog under prosecution, but Boling- 
broke is not active enough ; but I hope to swinge him. He is a Scotch rogue, 
one Ridpath. They get out upon bail, and write on. We take them again, 
and get fresh bail; so it goes round." — Journal to Stella. 

t Swift was by no means inclined to forget such considerations ; and his 
EngUsh birth makes its mark, strikingly enough, every now and then in his 
writings. Thus in a letter to Pope (Scott's Swift, vol. xix. p. 97), he says: — 

"We have had your volume of letters. . . . Some of those who highly value 
you, and a few who knew you personally, are grieved to find you make no dis- 
tinction between the English gentry of this kingdom, and the savage old Irish 
(who are only the vulgar, and some gentlemen who live in the Irish parts of the 
kingdom) ; but the English colonies, who are three parts in four, are much 
more civilized than many counties in England, and speak better English, and 
are much better bred." 

And again, in the fourth Drapier's Letter, we have the following : — 

"A short paper, printed at Bristol, and reprinted here, reports Mr. Wood 
to say 'that he wonders at the impudence and insolence of the Irish in refusing 



12 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

man, and always an Irishman : Steele was an Irishman, and 
always an Irishman : Swift's heart was English and in Eng- 
land, his habits English, his logic eminently Enghsh; his 
statement is elaborately simple ; he shuns tropes and meta- 
5 phors, and uses his ideas and words with a wise thrift and 
economy, as he used his money: with which he could be 
generous and splendid upon great occasions, but which he 
husbanded when there was no need to spend it. He never 
indulges in needless extravagance of rhetoric, lavish epithets, 
lo profuse imagery. He lays his opinion before you with a grave 
sirnplicity and a perfect neatness.* Dreading ridicule too, as 
a man of his humor — above all, an Englishman of his humor — 

his coin.' When, by the way, it is the true Enghsh people of Ireland who 
refuse it, although we take it for granted that the Irish will do so too whenever 
they are asked." — Scott's Swift, vol. vi. p. 453. 

He goes further, in a good-humored satirical paper, On Barbarous De- 
nominations in Ireland, where (after abusing, as he was wont, the Scotch ca- 
dence, as well as expression) he advances to the "Irish Brogue," and speaking 
of the "censure" which it brings down, says: — 

"And what is yet worse, it is too well known that the bad consequence of 
this opinion aflfects those among us who are not the least liable to such re- 
proaches farther than the misfortune of being born in Ireland, although of 
Enghsh parents, and whose education has been chiefly in that kingdom." — 
Ibid. vol. vii. p. 149. 

But, indeed, if we are to make anything of Race at all, we must call that man 
an Englishman whose father comes from an old Yorkshire family, and his 
mother from an old Leicestershire one ! 

* "The style of his conversation was very much of a piece with that of his 
writings, concise and clear and strong. Being one day at a Sheriff's feast, who 
amongst other toasts called out to him, 'Mr. Dean, The Trade of Ireland !' he 
answered quick : ' Sir, I drink no memories ! ' . . . 

"Happening to be in company with a petulant young man who prided him- 
self on saying pert things . . . and who cried out — ' You must know, Mr. 
Dean^ that I set up for a wit !' 'Do you so?' says the Dean. 'Take my ad- 
vice, and sit down again ! ' 

"At another time, being in company, where a lady whisking her long train 
[long trains were then in fashion] swept down a fine fiddle and broke it ; Swift 
cried out — 

'Mantua vje miscrae nimium vicina Cremona; !'" 

— Dr. Delany: Observations upon Lord Orrery's "Remarks, drc. on Swift.** 
London, 1754. 



SWIFT 13 

certainly would, he is afraid to use the poetical power which 
he really possessed ; one often fancies in reading him that he 
dares not be eloquent when he might ; that he does not speak 
above his voice, as it were, and the tone of society. 

His initiation into politics, his knowledge of business, his 5 
knowledge of polite life, his acquaintance with literature 
even, which he could not have pursued very sedulously during 
that reckless career at Dublin, Swift got under the roof of 
Sir William Temple. He was fond of telling in after life what 
quantities of books he devoured there, and how King William 10 
taught him to cut asparagus in the Dutch fashion. It was at 
Shene and at Moor Park, with a salary of twenty pounds and 
a dinner at the upper servants' table, that this great and lonely 
Swift passed a ten years' apprenticeship — wore a cassock that 
was only not a livery — bent down a knee as proud as Lucifer's 15 
to supplicate my Lady's good graces, or run on his honor's 
errands.* It was here, as he was writing at Temple's table, 
or following his patron's walk, that he saw and heard the men 
who had governed the great world — measured himself with 
them, looking up from his silent corner, gauged their brains, 20 
weighed their wits, turned them, and tried them, and marked 
them. Ah ! what platitudes he must have heard ! what 
feeble jokes ! what pompous commonplaces ! what small men 
they must have seemed under those enormous periwigs, to 
the swarthy, uncouth, silent Irish secretary. I wonder 25 

. * "Don't you remember how I used to be in pain when Sir William Temple 
would look cold and out of humor for three or four days, and I used to suspect 
a hundred reasons ? I have plucked up my spirits since then, faith ; he spoiled 
a fine gentleman." — Journal to Stella. 

[It should be added that this statement about the twenty pounds a year, and 
the upper servants' table, came from a hostile story told long afterwards by a 
nephew of Temple to Richardson the novelist. It is probably true enough of 
Swift's first stay as a raw lad in the family ; but Temple came to value Swift's 
services much more highly, and induced him to return from Ireland by promises 
of preferment. Temple's death prevented their fulfillment, but it is clear that 
he had come to treat Swift with great respect.] 



14 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

whether it ever struck Temple, that that Irishman was his 
master? I suppose that dismal conviction did not present 
itself under the ambrosial wig, or Temple could never have 
lived with Swift. Swift sickened, rebelled, left the service — 
5 ate humble pie and came back again ; and so for ten years 
went on, gathering learning, swallowing scorn, and submitting 
with a stealthy rage to his fortune. 

Temple's style is the perfection of practiced and easy good 
breeding. If he does not penetrate very deeply into a subject, 

lohe professes a very gentlemanly acquaintance with it; if he 
makes rather a parade of Latin, it was the custom of his day, 
as it was the custom for a gentleman to envelop his head in a 
periwig and his hands in lace ruffles. If he wears buckles and 
square-toed shoes, he steps in them with a consummate grace, 

15 and you never hear their creak, or find them treading upon 
any lady's train or any rival's heels in the Court crowd. 
When that grows too hot or too agitated for him, he politely 
leaves it. He retires to his retreat of Shene or Moor Park ; 
and lets the King's party and the Prince of Orange's party 

20 battle it out among themselves. He reveres the Sovereign 
(and no man perhaps ever testified to his loyalty by so elegant 
a bow) ; he admires the Prince of Orange ; but there is one 
person whose ease and comfort he loves more than all the 
princes in Christendom, and that valuable member of society 

25 is himself, Gulielmus Temple, Baronettus. One sees him in 
his retreat : between his study-chair and his tulip-beds,* 

* " . . . The Epicureans were more intelligible in their notion, and fortunate 
in their expression, when they placed a man's happiness in the tranquillity of 
his mind and indolence of body ; for while we are composed of both, I doubt 
both must have a share in the good or ill we feel. As men of several languages 
say the same things in very different words, so in several ages, countries, con- 
stitutions of laws and religion, the same thing seems to be meant by very dif- 
ferent expressions : what is called by the Stoics apathy, or dispassion ; by the 
sceptics, indisturbance ; by the Molinists, quietism ; by common men, peace 
of conscience — seems all to mean but great tranquillity of mind. . . . For this 
reason Epicurus passed his life wholly in his garden ; there he studied, there he 



SWIFT 15 

clipping his apricots and pruning his essays, — the statesman, 
the ambassador no more ; but the philosopher, the Epicurean, 
the fine gentleman and courtier at Saint James's as at Shene ; 
where, in place of kings and fair ladies, he pays his court to the 
Ciceronian majesty ; or walks a minuet with the Epic Muse ; 5 
or dallies by the south wall with the ruddy nymph of gardens. 
Temple seems to have received and exacted a prodigious 
deal of veneration from his household, and to have been coaxed, 
and warmed, and cuddled by the people round about him, as 
delicately as any of the plants which he loved. When he fell ill 10 
in 1693, the household was aghast at his indisposition; mild 
Dorothea his wife, the best companion of the best of men — 

"Mild Dorothea, peaceful, wise, and great, 
Trembling beheld the doubtful hand of fate." 

As for Dorinda, his sister, — iS 

"Those who would grief describe, might come and trace 
Its watery footsteps in Dorinda's face. 

exercised, there he taught his philosophy; and, indeed, no other sort of abode 
seems to contribute so much to both the tranquilHty of mind and indolence of 
body, which he made his chief ends. The sweetness of the air, the pleasantness 
of smell, the verdure of plants, the cleanness and lightness of food, the exercise 
of working or walking ; but, above all, the exemption from cares and solicitude, 
seem equally to favor and improve both contemplation and health, the enjoy- 
ment of sense and imagination, and thereby the quiet and ease both of the body 
and mind. . . . Where Paradise was, has been much debated, and little agreed; 
but what sort of place is meant by it may perhaps easier be conjectured. It 
seems to have been a Persian word, since Xenophon and other Greek authors 
mention it as what was much in use and delight among the kings of those Eastern 
countries. Strabo describing Jericho: 'Ibi est palmetum, cui immixtse sunt 
etiam aliae stirpes hortenses, locus ferax palmis abundans, spatio stadiorum 
centum, totus irriguus: ibi est Regis Balsami paradisus.'" — Essay on Gardens. 

In the same famous essay Temple speaks of a friend, whose conduct and 
prudence he characteristically admires : — 

". . .1 thought it very prudent in a gentleman of my friends in Stafford- 
shire, who is a great lover of his garden, to pretend no higher, though his soil 
be good enough, than to the perfection of plums ; and in these (by bestowing 
south walls upon them) he has very well succeeded, which he could never have 
done in attempts upon peaches and grapes; and a good plum is certainly letter 
than an ill peach." 



i6 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

To see her weep, joy every face forsook, 

And grief flung sables on each menial look. 

The humble tribe mourned for the quickening soul. 

That furnished spirit and motion through the whole." 

5 Isn't that line in which grief is described as putting the 
menials into a mourning livery, a fine image ? One of the 
menials wrote it, who did not like that Temple livery nor 
those twenty-pound wages. Cannot one fancy the uncouth 
young servitor, with downcast eyes, books and papers in hand, 

lo following at his honor's heels in the garden walk ; or taking 
his honor's orders as he stands by the great chair, where Sir 
WiUiam has the gout, and his feet all bhstered v/ith moxa? 
When Sir William has the gout or scolds it must be hard work 
at the second table;* the Irish secretary owned as much 

* Swift's Thoughts on Hanging 
{Directions to Servants) 

"To grow old in the ofl5ce of a footman is the highest of all indignities; there- 
fore, when you find years coming on without hopes of a place at Court, a com- 
mand in the army, a succession to the stewardship, an employment in the 
revenue (which two last you cannot obtain without reading and writing), or 
running away with your master's niece or daughter, I directly advise you to go 
upon the road, which is the only post of honor left you: there you will meet 
many of yoiur old comrades, and live a short life and a merry one, and make a 
figure at your exit, wherein I will give you some instructions. 

"The last advice I give you relates to your behavior when you are going to 
be hanged : which, either for robbing your master, for housebreaking, or going 
upon the highway, or in a drunken quarrel by killing the first man you meet, 
may very probably be your lot, and is owing to one of these three qualities: 
either a love of good-fellowship, a generosity of mind, or too much vivacity of 
spirits. Your good behavior on this article will concern your whole community : 
deny the fact with all solemnity of imprecations : a hundred of yovu brethren, 
if they can be admitted, will attend about the bar, and be ready upon demand 
to give you a character before the court ; let nothing prevail on you to confess, 
but the promise of a pardon for discovering your comrades : but I suppose all 
this to be in vain ; for if you escape now, your fate will be the same another 
day. Get a speech to be written by the best author of Newgate : some of your 
kind wenches will provide you with a hoUand shirt and white cap, crowned with 
a crimson or black ribbon : take leave cheerfully of all your friends in Newgate : 
mount the cart with courage: fall on your knees; hft up your eyes; hold a 



SWIFT 17 

afterwards ; and when he came to dinner, how he must have 
lashed and growled and torn the household with his gibes 
and scorn ! What would the steward say about the pride of 
them Irish schollards — and this one had got no great credit 
even at his Irish college, if the truth were known — and s 
what a contempt his Excellency's own gentleman must have 
had for Parson Teague from Dublin ! (The valets and chap- 
lains were always at war. It is hard to say which Swift 
thought the more contemptible.) And what must have been 
the sadness, the sadness and terror, of the housekeeper's 10 
little daughter with the curling black ringlets and the sweet 
smiling face, when the secretary who teaches her to read and 
write, and whom she loves and reverences above all things — 
above mother, above mild Dorothea, above that tremendous 
Sir William in his square toes and periwig, — when Mr. 15 
Swift comes down from his master with rage in his heart, and 
has not a kind word even for little Hester Johnson ? 

Perhaps, for the Irish secretary, his Excellency's condescen- 
sion was even more cruel than his frowns. Sir William would 
perpetually quote Latin and the ancient classics d propos of 20 
his gardens and his Dutch statues, and plaies-bandes, and 
talk about Epicurus and Diogenes Laertius, Julius Csesar, 
Semiramis, and the gardens of the Hesperides, Maecenas, 
Strabo describing Jericho, and the Assyrian kings. Apropos 
of beans, he would mention Pythagoras's precept to abstain 25 
from beans, and that this precept probably meant that wise 
men should abstain from public affairs. He is a placid Epi- 
curean ; he is a Pythagorean philosopher ; he is a, wise man — 
that is the deduction. Does not Swift think so ? One can 
imagine the downcast eyes lifted up for a moment, and the 30 

book in your hands, although you cannot read a word; deny the fact at the 
gallows; kiss and forgive the hangman, and so farewell: you shall be buried 
in pomp at the charge of the fraternity : the surgeon shall not touch a limb of 
you ; and your frame shall continue until a successor of equal renown succeeds 
in your place. . . ." 



l8 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

flash of sc(frn which they emit. Swift's eyes were as azure as 
the heavens ; Pope says nobly (as everything Pope said and 
thought of his friend was good and noble), ''His eyes are as 
azure as the heavens, and have a charming archness in them." 
5 And one person in that household, that pompous, stately, 
kindly Moor Park, saw heaven nowhere else. 

But the Temple amenities and solemnities did not agree 
with Swift. He was half-killed with a surfeit of Shene pip- 
pins; and in a garden-seat which he devised for himself at 

loMoor Park, and where he devoured greedily the stock of 
books within his reach, he caught a vertigo and deafness 
which punished and tormented him through life. He could 
not bear the place or the servitude. Even in that poem of 
courtly condolence, from which we have quoted a few lines of 

15 mock melancholy, he breaks out of the funereal procession 
with a mad shriek, as it were, and rushes away crying his 
own grief, cursing his own fate, foreboding madness, and for- 
saken by fortune, and even hope. 

I don't know anything more melancholy than the letter to 

20 Temple, in which, after having broke from his bondage, the 
poor wretch crouches piteously towards his cage again, and 
deprecates his master's anger. He asks for testimonials for 
orders. 

"The particulars required of me are what relate to morals 
25 and learning ; and the reasons of quitting your honor's 
family — that is, whether the last was occasioned by any ill 
action. They are left entirely to your honor's mercy, though 
in the first I think I cannot reproach myself for anything 
further than for infirmities. This is all I dare at present beg 
30 from your honor, under circumstances of life not worth your 
regard : what is left me to wish (next to the health and pros- 
perity of your honor and family) is that Heaven would one 
day allow me the opportunity of leaving my acknowledge 



SWIFT 19 

ments at your feet. I beg my most humble duty and service 
be presented to my ladies, your honor's lady and sister." 

Can prostration fall deeper ? could a slave bow lower ?* 

Twenty years afterwards Bishop Kennet, describing the 
same man, says : — , 5 

"Dr. Swift came into the coffeehouse and had a bow from 
everybody but me. When I came to the antechamber [at 
Court] to wait before prayers, Dr. Swift was the principal 
man of talk and business. He was soliciting the Earl of 
Arran to speak to his brother, the Duke of Ormond, to get a 10 

* "He continued in Sir William Temple's house till the death of that great 
man." — Anecdotes of the family of Swift, by the Dean. 

"It has since pleased God to take this good and great person to himself." — 
Preface to Temple's Works. 

On all public occasions, Swift speaks of Sir William in the same tone. [The 
letter given above was written 6th October 1694, and is humiliating enough. 
Swift's relation, to Temple changed, as already said. The passages, however, 
which follow, no doubt show a strong sense of "indignities" at one time or 
other.] But the reader will better understand how acutely he remembered the 
indignities he suffered in his household, from the subjoined extracts from the 
Journal to Stella: — 

"I called at Mr. Secretary the other day, to see what the d ailed him on 

Sunday : I made him a very proper speech ; told him I observed he was much 
out of temper, that I did not expect he would tell me the cause, but would be 
glad to see he was in better ; and one thing I warned him of — never to appear 
cold to me, for I would not be treated like a schoolboy ; that I had felt too much 
of that in my life already" (meaning Sir William Temple), &c. &c. — Journal 
to Stella. 

"I am thinking what a veneration we used to have for Sir William Temple 
because he might have been Secretary of State at fifty; and here is a young 
fellow hardly thirty in that employment." — • Ibid. 

"The Secretary is as easy with me as Mr. Addison was. I have often thought 
what a splutter Sir WiUiam Temple makes about being Secretary of State." — 
Ibid. 

"Lord Treasurer has had an ugly fit of the rheumatism, but is now quite 
well. I was playing at one-and-thirty with him and his family the other night. 
He gave us all twelvepence apiece to begin with ; it put me in mind of Sir William 
Temple." — Ibid. 

" I thought I saw Jack Temple [nephew to Sir William] and his wife pass by 
me to-day in their coach; but I took no notice of them. I am glad I have 
wholly shaken off that family." — S. to S., Sept. 1710. 



20 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

place for a clergyman. He was promising Mr. Thorold to 
undertake, with my Lord Treasurer, that he should obtain a 
salary of £200 per annum as member of the English Church 
at Rotterdam. He stopped F. Gwynne, Esquire, going into 
5 the Queen with the red bag, and told him aloud, he had some- 
thing to say to him from my Lord Treasurer. He took out his 
gold watch, and telling the time of day, complained that it 
was very late. A gentleman said he was too fast. ' How can I 
help it,' says the Doctor, 'if the courtiers give me a watch 

10 that won't go right?' Then he instructed a young noble- 
man, that the best poet in England was Mr. Pope (a papist), 
who had begun a translation of Homer into English, for which 
he would have them all subscribe: 'For,' says he, 'he shall 
not begin to print till I have a thousand guineas for him.'* 

15 Lord Treasurer, after leaving the Queen, came through the 
room, beckoning Doctor Swift to follow him — both went off 
just before prayers, "t 

There's a little malice in the Bishop's "just before prayers." 
This picture of the great Dean seems a true one, and is 
20 harsh, though not altogether unpleasant. He was doing 
good, and to deserving men, too, in the midst of these in- 
trigues and triumphs. His journals and a thousand anecdotes 
of him relate his kind acts and rough manners. His hand 
was constantly stretched out to relieve an honest man — he 

* "Swift must be allowed," says Doctor Johnson, "for a time, to have dic- 
tated the pohtical opinions of the English nation." 

A conversation on the Dean's pamphlets excited one of the Doctor's liveliest 
sallies. "One, in particular, praised his Conduct of the Allies. — Johnson : ' Sir, 
his Conduct of the Allies is a performance of very httle ability. . . . Why, sir, 
Tom Davies might have written the Conduct of the Allies!'" — Boswell's Life 
of Johnson. 

t The passage as quoted in the text is slightly abbreviated. It may be 
observed that Swift fulfilled his promises of support to the "clergyman," Dr. 
Fiddes, author of a good life of Wolsey, and was very useful to Pope. Many 
other instances could be given of the "kind acts'' mentioned in the next para- 
graph. 



SWIFT 21 

was cautious about his money, but ready. If you were in a 
strait, would you like such a benefactor? I think I would 
rather have had a potato and a friendly word from Gold- 
smith than have been beholden to the Dean for a guinea and 
a dinner.* He insulted a man as he served him, made women s 
cry, guests look foolish, bullied unlucky friends, and flung his 
benefactions into poor men's faces. No; the Dean was no 
Irishman — no Irishman ever gave but with a kind word and 
a kind heart. 

It is told, as if it were to Swift's credit, that the Dean of lo 
Saint Patrick's performed his family devotions every morning 
regularly, but with such secrecy that the guests in his house 
were never in the least aware of the ceremony. There was 
no need surely why a Church dignitary should assemble his 
family privily in a cr3;TDt, and as if he was afraid of heathen 15 
persecution. But I think the world was right, and the bishops 
who advised Queen Anne when they counseled her not to 
appoint the author of the ''Tale of a Tub " to a bishopric, gave 
perfectly good advice. The man who wrote the arguments 
and illustrations in that wild book, could not but be aware 20 

* "Whenever he fell into the company of any person for the first time, it was 
his custom to try their tempers and disposition by some abrupt question that 
bore the appearance of rudeness. If this were well taken, and answered with 
good-humor, he afterwards made amends by his civilities. But if he saw any 
marks of resentment, from alarmed pride, vanity, or conceit, he dropped all 
further intercourse with the party. This will be illustrated by an anecdote of 
that sort related by Mrs. Pilkington. After supper, the Dean, having decanted 
a bottle of wine, poured what remained into a glass, and seeing it was muddy, 
presented it to Mr. Pilkington to drink it. 'For,' said he, ' I always keep some 
poor parson to drink the foul wine for me.' Mr. Pilkington, entering into 
his humor, thanked him, and told him 'he did not know the difference, but 
was glad to get a glass at any rate.' 'Why, then,' said the Dean, 'you shan't, 

for I'll drink it myself. Why, take you, you are wiser than a paltry curate 

whom I asked to dine with me a few days ago ; for upon my making the same 
.speech to him, he said he did not understand such usage, and so walked off 
without his dinner. By the same token, I told the gentleman who recom- 
mended him to me that the fellow was a blockhead, and I had done with him.'" 
— Sheridan's Life of Swift. 



22 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

what must be the sequel of the propositions which he laid 
down. The boon companion of Pope and Bolingbroke, who 
chose these as the friends of his life, and the recipients of his 
confidence and affection, must have heard many an argument, 
5 and joined in many a conversation over Pope's port, or St. 
John's burgundy, which would not bear to be repeated at 
other men's boards. 

I know of few things more conclusive as to the sincerity of 
Swift's religion than his advice to poor John Gay to turn 

lo clergyman, and look out for a seat on the Bench. Gay, the 
author of the ''Beggar's Opera" — Gay, the wildest of the 
wits about town — it was this man that Jonathan Swift 
advised to take orders — to invest in a cassock and bands — 
just as he advised him to husband his shillings and put his 

15 thousand pounds out at interest. The Queen, and the 
bishops, and the world, were right in mistrusting the religion 
of that man.* 

* From the Archbishop of Cashell 

"Cashell: May sist, 1735 

"Dear Sir, — I have been so unfortunate in all my contests of late, that I 
am resolved to have no more, especially where I am likely to be overmatched; 
and as I have some reason to hope what is past will be forgotten, I confess I 
did endeavor in my last to put the best color I could think of upon a very 
bad cause. My friends judge right of my idleness ; but, in reality, it has hitherto 
proceeded from a hurry and confusion, arising from a thousand unlucky unfore- 
seen accidents rather than mere sloth. I have but one troublesome affair now 
upon my hands, which, by the help of the prime sergeant, I hope soon to get 
rid of; and then you shall see me a true Irish bishop. Sir James Ware has 
made a very useful collection erf the memorable actions of my predecessors. 
He tells me, they were born in such a town of England or Ireland ; were con- 
secrated such a year ; and if not translated, were buried in the Cathedral Church, 
either on the north or south side. Whence I conclude that a good bishop has 
nothing more to do than to eat, drink, grow fat, rich, and die ; which laudable 
example I propose for the remainder of my life to follow; for to tell you the 
truth, I have for these four or five years past met with so much treachery, base- 
ness, and ingratitude among mankind, that I can hardly think it incumbent on 
any man to endeavor to do good to so perverse a generation. 

"I am truly concerned at the account you give me of your health. Without 
doubt a southern ramble will prove the best remedy you can take to recover 



SWIFT 23 

I am not here, of course, to speak of any man's religious 
views, except in so far as they influence his literary character, 
his life, his humor. The most notorious sinners' of all those 
fellow-mortals whom it is our business to discuss — Harry 
Fielding and Dick Steele — were especially loud, and 1 5 
believe really fervent in their expressions of behef; they 
belabored freethinkers, and stoned imaginary atheists on all 
sorts of occasions, going out of their way to bawl their own 
creed, and persecute their neighbor's, and if they sinned and 
stumbled, as they constantly did with debt, with drink, with 10 
all sorts of bad behavior, they got upon their knees and cried 
''Peccavi" with a most sonorous orthodoxy. Yes; poor ' 
Harry Fielding and poor Dick Steele were trusty and undoubt- 
ing Church of England men ; they abhorred Popery, Atheism, 
and wooden shoes and idolatries in general ; and hiccuped 15 
Church and State with fervor. 

But Swift? His mind had had a different schooling, and 
possessed a very different logical power. He was not bred up 

your flesh; and I do not know, except in one stage, where you cati choose a 
road so suited to your circumstances, as from Dublin hither. You have to 
Kilkenny a turnpike and good inns, at every ten or twelve miles' end. From 
Kilkenny hither is twenty long miles, bad road, and no inns at all : but I have 
an expedient for you. At the foot of a very high hill, just midway, there lives 
in a neat thatched cabin a parson, who is not poor; his wife is allowed to be 
the best little woman in the world. Her chickens are the fattest, and her ale 
the best in all the country. Besides, the parson has a little cellar of his own, 
of which he keeps the key, where he always has a hogshead of the best wine 
that can be got, in bottles well corked, upon their side; and he cleans, and 
pulls out the cork better, I think, than Robin. Here I design to meet you 
with a coach; if you be tired, you shall stay all night; if not, after dinner, 
we will set out about four, and be at Cashell by nine; and by going through 
fields and byways, which the parson will show us, we shall escape all the 
rocky and stony roads that lie between this place and that, which are certainly 
very bad. I hope you will be so kind as to let me know a post or two before 
you set out, the very day you will be at Kilkenny, that I may have all things 
prepared for you. It may be, if you ask him, Cope will come : he will do noth- 
ing for me. Therefore, depending upon your positive promise, I shall add no ^ 
more arguments to persuade you, and am, with the greatest truth, your most 
faithful and obedient servant, "Theo. Cashell" 



24 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

in a tipsy guardroom, and did not learn to reason in a Covent 
Garden tavern. He could conduct an argument from begin- 
ning to end. He could see forward with a fatal clearness. In 
his old age, looking at the ''Tale of a Tub," when he said, 
5 "Good God, what a genius I had when I wrote that book !" 
I think he was admiring, not the genius, but the consequences 
to which the genius had brought him — a vast genius, a mag- 
nificent genius, a genius wonderfully bright, and dazzling, and 
strong, — to seize, to know, to see, to flash upon falsehood 

loand scorch it into perdition, to penetrate into the hidden 
motives, and expose the black thoughts of men, — an awful, 
an evil spirit. 

Ah man ! you, educated in Epicurean Temple's library, you 
whose friends were Pope and St. John — what made you to 

IS swear to fatal vows, and bind yourself to a Hfelong hypocrisy 
before the Heaven which you adored with such real wonder, 
humility, and reverence ? For Swift's was a reverent, was a 
pious spirit — for Swift could love and could pray. Through 
the storms and tempests of his furious mind, the stars of re- 

20 ligion and love break out in the blue, shining serenely, though 
hidden by the driving clouds and the maddened hurricane of 
his life. 

It is my belief that he suffered frightfully from the conscious- 
ness of his own skepticism, and that he had bent his pride so 

25 far down as to put his apostasy out to hire.* The paper left 
behind him, called ''Thoughts on Religion," is merely a set 
of excuses for not professing disbelief. He says of his ser- 
mons that he preached pamphlets : they have scarce a Chris- 
tian characteristic; they might be preached from the steps 

30 of a synagogue, or the floor of a mosque, or the box of a 

* " Mr. Swift lived with him [Sir WiUiam Temple] some time, but resolving 
to settle himself in some way of living, was inclined to take orders. However, 
although his fortune was very small, he had a scruple of entering into the Church 
merely for support." — Anecdotes of the Family of Swift, by the Dean. 



SWIFT 25 

coffeehouse almost. There is Httle or no cant — he is too 
great and too proud for that ; and, in so far as the badness of 
his sermons goes, he is honest. But having put that cassock 
on, it poisoned him ; he was strangled in his bands. He goes 
through life, tearing, like a man possessed with a devil. 5 
Like Abudah in the Arabian story, he is always looking out 
for the Fury, and knows that the night will come and the 
inevitable hag with it. What a night, my God, it was ! 
what a lonely rage and long agony — what a vulture that tore 
the heart of that giant ! * It is awful to think of the great 10 
sufferings of this great man. Through life he always seems 
alone, somehow. Goethe was so. I can't fancy Shakespeare 
otherwise. The giants must live apart. The kings can have 
no company. But this man suffered so ; and deserved so to 
suffer. One hardly reads anywhere of such a pain. 15 

The "saeva.indignatio" of which he spoke as lacerating his 
heart, and which he dares to inscribe on his tombstone — as 
if the wretch who lay under that stone waiting God's judg- 
ment had a right to be angry — breaks out from him in a 
thousand pages of his writing, and tears and rends him. 20 
Against men in office, he having been overthrown ; against 
men in England, he having lost his chance of preferment there, 
the furious exile never fails to rage and curse. Is it fair to 
call the famous ''Drapier's Letters" patriotism? They are 
masterpieces of dreadful humor and invective : they are 25 
reasoned logically enough too, but the proposition is as mon- 
strous and fabulous as the Lilliputian island. It is not that 
the grievance is so great, but there is his enemy — the assault 
is wonderful for its activity and terrible rage. It is Samson, 
with a bone in his hand, rushing on his enemies and felling 30 

*"Dr. Swift had a natural severity of face, which even his smiles could 
scarce soften, or his utmost gayety render placid and serene; but when that 
sternness of visage was increased by rage, it is scarce possible to imagine looks 
or features that carried in them more terror and austerity." — Orrery. 



26 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

them : one admires not the cause so much as the strength, the 
anger, the fury of the champion. As is the case with madmen, 
certain subjects provoke him, and awaken his fits of wrath. 
Marriage is one of these ; in a hundred passages in his writings 

5 he rages against it ; rages against children ; an object of con- 
stant satire, even more contemptible in his eyes than a lord's 
chaplain, is a poor curate with a large family. The idea of 
this luckless paternity never fails to bring down from him 
gibes and foul language. Could Dick Steele, or Goldsmith, or 

lo Fielding, in his most reckless moment of satire, have written 
anything like the Dean's famous ''Modest Proposal" for 
eating children ? Not one of these but melts at the thoughts 
of childhood, fondles and caresses it. Mr. Dean has no such 
softness, and enters the nursery with the tread and gayety 

15 of an ogre.* "I have been assured," says he in the ''Modest 
Proposal," "by a very knowing American of my, acquaintance 
in London, that a young healthy child, well nursed, is, at a 
year old, a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, 
whether stewed, roasted, baked or boiled; and I make no 

20 doubt it will equally serve in a ragout.' ' And taking up this 
pretty joke, as his way is, he argues it with perfect gravity 
and logic. He turns and twists this subject in a score of 
different ways ; he hashes it ; and he serves it up cold ; and 
he garnishes it ; and relishes it always. He describes the little 

25 animal as "dropped from its dam," advising that the mother 
should let it suck plentifully in the last month, so as to render 
it plump and fat for a good table ! "A child," says his Rever- 
ence, "will make two dishes at an entertainment for friends; 
and when the family dines alone, the fore or hind quarter 

* "London: April 10th, 1713 
"Lady Masham's eldest boy is very ill: I doubt he will not live; and she 
stays at Kensington to nurse him, which vexes us all. She is so excessively 
fond, it makes me mad. She should never leave the Queen, but leave every- 
thing, to stick to what is so much the interest of the public, as well as her 
own. ..." — Journal. 



SWIFT 27 

will make a reasonable dish," and so on; and the subject 
being so delightful that he can't leave it, he proceeds to recom- 
mend, in place of venison for squires' tables, ''the bodies of 
young lads and maidens not exceeding fourteen or under 
twelve." Amiable humorist! laughing castiga tor of morals ! 5 
There was a process well known and practised in the Dean's 
gay days ; when a lout entered the coffeehouse, the wags pro- 
ceeded to what they called "roasting" him. This is roasting 
a subject with a vengeance. The Dean had a native genius 
for it. As the "Almanach des Gourmands" says, ''On naitio 
rotisseur." 

And it was not merely by the sarcastic method that Swift 
exposed the unreasonableness of loving and having children. 
In "Gulliver," the folly of love and marriage is urged by 
graver arguments and advice. In the famous Lilliputian 15 
kingdom. Swift speaks with approval of the practice of in- 
stantly removing children from their parents and educating 
them by the State ; and amongst his favorite horses, a pair 
of foals are stated to be the very utmost a well-regulated 
equine couple would permit themselves. In fact, our great 20 
satirist was of opinion that conjugal love was unadvisable, 
and illustrated the theory by his own practice and example — 
God help him ! — which made him about the most wretched 
being in God's world.* 

The grave and logical conduct of an absurd proposition, as 25 
exemplified in the cannibal proposal just mentioned, is our 
author's constant method through all his works of humor. . 
Given a country of people six inches or sixty feet high, and 
by the mere process of the logic, a thousand wonderful ab- 
surdities are evolved, at so many stages of the calculation. 30 
Turning to the First Minister who waited behind him with a 
white staff near as tall as the mainmast of the Royal Sovereign, 

*"My health is somewhat mended, but at best I have an ill head and an 
aching heart." — In May 1719. 



28 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

the King of Brobdingnag observes how contemptible a thing 
human grandeur is, as represented by such a contemptible 
little creature as Gulliver. ''The Emperor of Lilliput's 
features are strong and masculine" (what a surprising humor 
5 there is in this description!) — "The Emperor's features," 
Gulliver says, "are strong and masculine, with an Austrian 
lip, an arched nose, his complexion olive, his countenance 
erect, his body and limbs well proportioned, and his deport- 
ment majestic. He is taller by the breadth of my nail than any 

lo of his Court, which alone is enough to strike an awe into be- 
holders." 

What a surprising humor there is in these descriptions ! 
How noble the satire is here! how just and honest! How 
perfect the image ! Mr. Macaulay has quoted the charming 

15 lines of the poet where the king of the pygmies is measured 
by the same standard. We have all read in Milton of the 
spear that was like "the mast of some great ammiral" ; but 
these images are surely likely to come to the comic poet 
originally. The subject is before him. He is turning it in a 

20 thousand ways. He is full of it. The figure suggests itself 
naturally to him, and comes out of his subject, as in that 
wonderful passage, when Gulliver's box having been dropped 
by the eagle into the sea, and Gulliver having been received 
into the ship's cabin, he calls upon the crew to bring the box 

25 into the cabin, and put it on the table, the cabin being only a 
quarter the size of the box. It is the veracity of the blunder 
which is so admirable. Had a man come from such a coun- 
try as Brobdingnag, he would have blundered so. 

But the best stroke of humor, if there be a best in that 

30 abounding book, is that where Gulliver, in the unproaounce- 
able country, describes his parting from his master the horse.* 

* Perhaps the most melancholy satire in the whole of the dreadful book is 
the description of the very old people in the "Voyage to Laputa." At Lugnag, 
Gulliver hears of some persons who never die, called the Struldbrugs, and 



SWIFT 29 

"I took," he says, "sl second leave of my master, but as I 
was going to prostrate myself to kiss his hoof, he did me the 
honor to raise it gently to my mouth. I am not ignorant how 

expressing a wish to become acquainted with men who must have so much 
learning and experience, his coUoquist describes the Struldbrugs to him. 

"He said: They commonly acted like mortals, till about thirty years old, 
after which, by degrees, they grew melancholy and dejected, increasing in both 
till they came to fourscore. This he learned from their own confession : for 
otherwise there not being above two or three of that species born in an age, 
they were too few to form a general observation by. When they came to four- 
score years, which is reckoned the extremity of living in this country, they 
had not only all the follies and infirmities of other old men, but many more, 
which arose from the dreadful prospect of never dying. They were not only 
opinionative, peevish, covetous, morose, vain, talkative, but incapable of friend- 
ship, and dead to all natural affection, which never descended below their 
grandchildren. Envy and impotent desires are their prevailing passions. 
But those objects against which their envy seems principally directed, are the 
vices of the younger sort and the deaths of the old. By reflecting on the former, 
they find themselves cut off from all possibility of pleasure; and whenever 
they see a funeral, they lament, and repine that others are gone to a harbor 
of rest, to which they themselves never can hope to arrive. They have no 
remembrance of anything but what they learned and observed in their youth 
and middle age, and even that is very imperfect. And for the truth or par- 
ticulars of any fact, it is safer to depend on common tradition than upon their 
best recollections. The least miserable among them appear to be those who 
turn to dotage, and entirely lose their memories ; these meet with more pity 
and assistance, because they want many bad qualities which abound in others. 

"If a Struldbrug happen to marry one of his own kind, the marriage is dis- 
solved of course, by the courtesy of the kingdom, as soon as the younger of 
the two comes to be fourscore. For the law thinks it a reasonable indulgence 
that those who are condemned, without any fault of their own, to a perpetual 
continuance in the world, should not have their misery doubled by the load of 
a wife. 

"As soon as they have completed the term of eighty years, they are looked 
on as dead in law; their heirs immediately succeed to their estates, only a 
small pittance is reserved for their support ; and the poor ones are maintained 
at the public charge. After that period they are held incapable of any em- 
ployment of trust or profit, they cannot purchase lands or take leases, neither 
are they allowed to be witnesses in any cause, either civil or criminal, not even 
for the decision of meers and bounds. 

"At ninety they lose their teeth and hair; they have at that age no dis- 
tinction of taste, but eat and drink whatever they can get without rehsh or 
appetite. The diseases they were subject to still continue, without increasing 
or diminishing. In talking, they forget the common appellation of things. 



30 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

much I have been censured for mentioning this last particular. 
Detractors are pleased to think it improbable that so illus- 
trious a person should descend to give so great a mark of dis- 
tinction to a creature so inferior as I. Neither have I for- 
5 gotten how apt some travelers are to boast of extraordinary 
favors they have received. But if these censurers were better 
acquainted with the noble and courteous disposition of the 
Houyhnhnms they would soon change their opinion." 

The surprise here, the audacity of circumstantial evidence, 

and the names of persons, even of those who are their nearest friends and rela- 
tions. For the same reason, they can never amuse themselves with reading, 
because their memory will not serve to carry them from the beginning of a 
sentence to the end; and by this defect they are deprived of the only enter- 
tainment whereof they might otherwise be capable. 

"The language of this country being always upon the flux, the Struldbrugs 
of one age do not understand those of another; neither are they able, after 
two hundred years, to hold any conversation (further than by a few general 
words) with their neighbors, the mortals; and thus they lie under the dis- 
advantage of hving like foreigners in their own country. 

"This was the account given me of the Struldbrugs, as near as I can remem- 
ber. I afterwards saw five or six of different ages, the youngest not above 
two hundred years old, who were brought to me at several times by some of 
my friends; but although they were told 'that I was a great traveler, and 
had seen all the world,' they had not the least curiosity to ask me a question; 
only desired I would give them slumskudask, or a token of remembrance; 
which is a modest way of begging, to avoid the law, that strictly forbids it, 
because they are provided for by the public, although indeed with a very scanty 
allowance. 

"They are despised and hated by all sorts of people; when one of them 
is born, it is reckoned ominous, and their birth is recorded very particularly; 
so that you may know their age by consulting the register, which, however, 
has not been kept above a thousand years past, or at least has been destroyed 
by time or public disturbances. But the usual way of computing how old 
they are, is by asking them what kings or great persons they can remember, 
and then consulting history ; for infallibly the last prince in their mind did 
not begin his reign after they were fourscore years old. 

"They were the most mortifying sight I ever beheld, and the women more 
horrible than the men ; besides the usual deformities in extreme old age, they 
acquired an additional ghastliness, in proportion to their number of years, 
which is not to be described ; and among half-a-dozen, I soon distinguished 
which was the eldest, although there was not above a century or two between 
them." — Gulliver's Travels. 



SWIFT 31 

the astounding gravity of the speaker, who is not ignorant 
how much he has been censured, the nature of the favor con- 
ferred, and the respectful exultation at the receipt of it, are 
surely complete ; it is truth topsy-turvy, entirely logical and 
absurd. 5 

As for the humor and conduct of this famous fable, I sup- 
pose there is no person who reads but must admire; as for 
the moral, I think it horrible, shameful, unmanly, blasphe- 
mous ; and giant and great as this Dean is, I say we should 
hoot him. Some of this audience mayn't have read the last 10 
part of Gulliver, and to such I would recall the advice of the 
venerable Mr. Punch to persons about to marry, and say 
"Don't." When Gulliver first lands among the Yahoos, the 
naked howling wretches clarnber up trees and assault him, 
and he describes himself as "almost stifled with the filth 15 
which fell about him." The reader of the fourth part of 
"Gulliver's Travels" is like the hero himself in this instance. 
It is Yahoo language : a monster gibbering shrieks, and 
gnashing imprecations against mankind — tearing down all 
shreds of modesty, past all sense of manliness and shame ; 20 
filthy in word, filthy in thought, furious, raging, obscene. 

And dreadful it is to think that Swift knew the tendency of 
his creed — the fatal rocks toward which his logic desper- 
ately drifted. That last part of "Gulliver" is only a conse- 
quence of what has gone before ; and the worthlessness of all 25 
mankind, the pettiness, cruelty, pride, imbecility, the general 
vanity, the foolish pretension, the mock greatness, the pom- 
pous dullness, the mean aims, the base successes — all these 
were present to him ; it was with the din of these curses of 
the world, blasphemies against Heaven, shrieking in his ears, 30 
that he began to write his dreadful allegory — of which the 
meaning is that man is utterly wicked, desperate, and im- 
becile, and his passions are so monstrous, and his boasted 
powers so mean, that he is and deserves to be the slave of 



32 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

brutes, and ignorance is better than his vaunted reason. 
What had this man done ? what secret remorse was rankHng 
at his heart ? what fever was boiHng in him, that he should 
see all the world bloodshot ? We view the world with our 
5 own eyes, each of us ; and we make from within us the world 
we see. A weary heart gets no gladness out of sunshine ; a 
selfish man is skeptical about friendship, as a man with no 
ear doesn't care for music. A frightful self-consciousness it 
must have been, which looked on mankind so darkly through 

lo those keen eyes of Swift. 

A remarkable story is told by Scott, of Delany, who in- 
terrupted Archbishop King and Swift in a conversation which 
left the prelate in tears, and from which Swift rushed away 
with marks of strong terror and agitation in his countenance, 

15 upon which the Archbishop said to Delany, "You have just 
met the most unhappy man on earth ; but on the subject 
of his wretchedness you must never ask a question." * 

The most unhappy man on earth ; — Miserrimus — what a 
character of him ! And at this time all the great wits of 

20 England had been at his feet. All Ireland had shouted after 
him, and worshiped him as a liberator, a saviour, the great- 
est Irish patriot and citizen. Dean Drapier Bickerstaff 
Gulliver — the most famous statesmen and the greatest 
poets of his day had applauded him and done him homage ; 

25 and at this time, writing over to Bolingbroke from Ireland, he 

says, "It is time for me to have done with the world, and so I 

would if I could get into a better before I was called into the 

best, and not die here in a rage, like a poisoned rat in a Jwle.^' 

We have spoken about the men, and Swift's behavior to 

30 them ; and now it behooves us not to forget that there are 
certain other persons in the creation who had rather intimate 

* This remarkable story came to Scott from an unnamed friend of Delany's 
widow. It has been supposed to confirm the conjecture about his natural 
relationship to Stella; but, even if correctly reported, is open to any number 
of interpretations. 



SWIFT 33 

relations with the great Dean.* Two women whom he loved 
and injured are known by every reader of books so familiarly 
that if we had seen them, or if they had been relatives of our 
own, we scarcely could have known them better. Who 
hasn't in his mind an image of Stella ? Who does not love 5 
her ? Fair and tender creature : pure and affectionate heart ! 
Boots it to you, now that you have been at rest for a hundred 
and twenty years, not divided in death from the cold heart 
which caused yours, whilst it beat, such faithful pangs of 
love and grief — boots it to you now, that the whole world 10 
loves and deplores you? Scarce any man, I beheve, ever 
thought of that grave, that did not cast a flower of pity on it, 
and write over it a sweet epitaph. Gentle lady, so lovely, so 
loving, so unhappy ! you have had countless champions ; 
millions of manly hearts mourning for you. From generation 15 
to generation we take up the fond tradition of your beauty, 
we watch and follow your tragedy, your bright morning 
love and purity, your constancy, your grief, your sweet mar- 
tyrdom. We know your legend by heart. You are one of the 
saints of English story. 20 

* The name of Varina has been thrown into the shade by those of the famous 
Stella and Vanessa ; but she had a story of her own to tell about the blue eyes 
of young Jonathan. One may say that the book of Swift's Life opens at places 
kept by these blighted flowers ! Varina must have a paragraph. 

She was a Miss Jane Waryng, sister to a college chum of his. In 1696, 
when Swift was nineteen years old, we find him writing a love-letter to her, 
beginning, "Impatience is the most inseparable quality of a lover." But 
absence made a great difference in his feelings; so, four years afterwards, the 
tone is changed. He writes again, a very curious letter, offering to marry her, 
and putting the offer in such a way that nobody could possibly accept it. ■ i 

After dwelling on his poverty, etc., he says, conditionally, "I shall be blessed 
to have you in my arms, without regarding whether your person be beautiful, 
or your fortune large. Cleanliness in the first, and competency in the second, 
is all I ask for ! " 

The editors do not tell us what became of Varina in Hfe. One would be glad 
to kncW that she met with some worthy partner, and lived long enough to see 
her little boys laughing over Lilliput, without any arriere pensee of a sad char- 
acter ahout the great Dean ! 



34 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

And if Stella's love and innocence are charming to contem- 
plate, I will say that, in spite of ill-usage, in spite of drawbacks, 
in spite of mysterious separation and union, of hope delayed 
and sickened heart — in the teeth of Vanessa, and that Httle 

5 episodical aberration which plunged Swift into such woeful 
pitfalls and quagmires of amorous perplexity — in spite of 
the verdicts of most women, I believe, who, as far as my expe- 
rience and conversation go, generally take Vanessa's part in 
the controversy — in spite of the tears which Swift caused 

lo Stella to shed, and the rocks and barriers which fate and 
temper interposed, and which prevented the pure course of 
that true love from running smoothly — the brightest part 
of Swift's story, the pure star in that dark and tempestuous 
life of Swift's, is his love for Hester Johnson. It has been my 

15 business, professionally of course, to go through a deal of 
sentimental reading in my time, and to acquaint myself with 
love-making, as it has been described in various languages, 
and at various ages of the world; and I know of nothing 
more manly, more tender, more exquisitely touching, than 

20 some of these brief notes, written in what Swift calls "his 
little language" in his journal to Stella.* He writes to her 
night and morning often. He never sends away a letter to 
her but he begins a new one on the same day. He can't bear 
to let go her kind little l^nd, as it were. He knows that she 

25 is thinking of him, and Kmging for him far away in Dublin 

* A sentimental ChampoUion migRt find a good deal of matter for his art, 
in expounding the symbols of the "Little Language." Usually, Stella is 
"M.D.," but sometimes her companion, Mrs. Dingley, is included in it. Swift 
is "Presto"; also P.D.F.R. We have "Good-night, M.D.; Night, M.D.; 
Little M.D.; Stellakins; Pretty Stella ; Dear, roguish, impudent, pretty M.D." 
Every now and then he breaks into rhyme, as — 

"I wish you both a merry new year. 
Roast beef, mince pies, and good strong beer, 
And me a share of your good cheer. 
That I was there, as you were here, 
And you are a little saucy dear." 



SWIFT 35 

yonder. He takes her letters from under his pillow and talks 
to them, familiarly, paternally, with fond epithets and pretty 
caresses — as he would to the sweet and artless creature who 
loved him. ''Stay," he writes one morning — it is the 14th 
of December 17 10 — ''Stay, I will answer some of your letter 5 
this morning in bed. Let me see. Come and appear, little 
letter ! Here I am, says he, and what say you to Stella this 
morning fresh and fasting ? And can Stella read this writing 
without hurting her dear eyes ? " he goes on, after more kind 
prattle and fond whispering. The dear eyes shine clearly 10 
upon him then — the good angel of his life is with him and 
blessing him. Ah, it was a hard fate that wrung from them 
so many tears, and stabbed pitilessly that pure and tender 
bosom. A hard fate: but would she have changed it? I 
have heard a woman say that she would have taken Swift's 15 
cruelty to have had his tenderness. He had a sort of worship 
for her whilst he wounded her. He speaks of her after she is 
gone ; of her wit, of her kindness, of her grace, of her beauty, 
with a simple love and reverence that are indescribably 
touching ; in contemplation of her goodness his hard heart 20 
melts into pathos; his cold rhyme kindles and glows into 
poetry, and he falls down on his knees, so to speak, before the 
angel whose life he had embittered, confesses his own wretched- 
ness and unworthiness, and adores her with cries of remorse 
and love : ^ 25 

"When on my sickly couch I lay, 
Impatient both of night and day, 
And groaning in unmanly strains, 
Called every power to ease my pains, 
Then Stella ran to my relief, 30 

With cheerful face and inward grief, 
And though by Heaven's severe decree 
She suffers hourly more than me. 
No cruel master could require 
From slaves employed for daily hire, 35 



36 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

What Stella, by her friendship warmed, 
With vigor and dehght performed. 
Now, with a soft and silent tread, 
Unheard she moves about my bed : 
5 My sinking spirits now supplies 

With cordials in her hands and eyes. 
Best pattern of true friends ! beware 
You pay too dearly for your care 
If, while your tenderness secures 
lo My life, it must endanger yours : •• 

For such a fool was never found 
Who pulled a palace to the ground, 
Only to have the ruins made 
Materials for a house decayed."' 

15 One Kttle triumph Stella had in her life — one dear little 
piece of injustice was performed in her favor, for which I 
confess, for my part, I can't help thanking fate and the Dean. 
That other person was sacrificed to her — that — that young 
woman, who lived five doors from Doctor Swift's lodgings in 

20 Bury Street, and who flattered him, and made love to him in 
such an outrageous manner — Vanessa was thrown over. 

Swift did not keep Stella's letters to him in reply to those 
he wrote to her.* He kept Bolingbroke's, and Pope's, and 

* The following passages are from a paper begun by Swift on the evening 
of the day of her death, Jan. 28, 1727-28: — 

"She was sickly from her childhood, until about the age of fifteen; but 
then she grew into perfect health, and was looked upon as one of the most 
beautiful, graceful, and agreeable young women in London — only a little 
too fat. Her hair was blacker than a raven, and every feature of her face in 
perfection. 

"... Properly speaking" — he goes on, with a calmness which, under the 
circumstances, is terrible — "she has been dying six months! . . . 

"Never was any of her sex born with better gifts of the mind, or who more 
improved them by reading and conversation. . . . All of us who had the hap- 
piness of her friendship agreed unanimously, that in an afternoon's or evening's 
conversation she never failed before we parted of delivering the best thing 
that was said in the company. Some of us have written down several of her 
sayings, or what the French call bons mots, wherein she excelled beyond belief." 

The specimens on record, however, in the Dean's paper, called "Bon Mots 



SWIFT 37 

Harley's, and Peterborough's: but Stella ''very carefully," 
the Lives say, kept Swift's. Of course: that is the way of 
the world : and so we cannot tell what her style was, or of 
what sort were the little letters which the Doctor placed there 
at night, and bade to appear from under his pillow of a morn- 5 
ing. But in Letter IV of that famous collection he describes 
his lodging in Bury Street, where he has the first floor, a 
dining room and bedchamber, at eight shillings a week; 
and in Letter VI he says "he has visited a lady just come to 
town," whose name somehow is not mentioned; and in 10 
Letter VIII he enters a query of Stella's — "What do you 
mean ' that boards near me, that I dine with now and then ' ? 
What the deuce ! You know whom I have dined with every 
day since I left you, better than I do." Of course she does. 
Of course Swift has not the slightest idea of what she means. 15 
But in a few letters more it turns out that the Doctor has been 
to dine "gravely" with a Mrs. Vanhomrigh : then that he 
has been to "his neighbor " : then that he has been unwell, and 
means to dine for the whole week with his neighbor ! Stella 
was quite right in her previsions. She saw from the very first 20 

de Stella," scarcely bear out this last part of the panegyric. But the following 
prove her wit : — 

"A gentleman who had been very silly and pert in her company, at last began 
to grieve at remembering the loss of a child lately dead. A bishop sitting by 
comforted him — that he should be easy, because ' the child was gone to heaven.' - 
'No, my Lord,' said she; 'that is it which most grieves him, because he is sure 
never to see his child there.' 

"When she was extremely ill, her physician said, 'Madam, you are near the 
bottom of the hill, but we will endeavor to get you up again.' She answered, . 
'Doctor, I fear I shall be out of breath before I get up to the top.' 

"A very dirty clergyman of her acquaintance, who affected smartness and 
repartees, was asked by some of the company how his nails came to be so dirty. 
He was at a loss; but she solved the difficulty by saying, 'The Doctor's nails 
grew dirty by scratching himself.' 

"A Quaker apothecary sent her a vial, corked; it had a broad brim, and a 
label of paper about its neck. 'What is that ? ' — said she — 'my apothecary's 
son ! ' The ridiculous resemblance, and the suddenness of the question, set us 
all a-laughing." — Swiff s Works, Scott's ed. vol. ix. 295-96. 



38 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

hint what was going to happen ; and scented Vanessa in the 
air.* The rival is at the Dean's feet. The pupil and teacher 
are reading together, and drinking tea together, and going to 
prayers together, and learning Latin together, and conju- 

5 gating amo, amas, amavi together. The ''little language" 

is over for poor Stella. By the rule of grammar and the 

course of conjugation, doesn't amavi come after amo and amas? 

The loves of Cadenus and Vanessa* you may peruse in 

Cadenus's own poem on the subject, and in poor Vanessa's 

lo vehement expostulatory verses and letters to him ; she adores 
him, implores him, admires him, thinks him something god- 
like, and only prays to be admitted to He at his feet, f As they 

* "I am so hot and lazy after my morning's walk, that I loitered at Mrs. 
Vanhomrigh's, where my best gown and periwig was, and out of mere listlessness 
dine there very often; so I did to-day." — Journal to Stella. 

Mrs. Vanhomrigh, "Vanessa's" mother, was the widow of a Dutch merchant 
who held lucrative appointments in King William's time. The family settled 
in London in 1709, and had a house in Bury Street, St. James's — a street made 
notable by such residents as Swift and Steele ; and, in our own time, Moore and 
Crabbe. 

* "Vanessa was excessively vain. The character given of her by Cadenus 
is fine painting, but in general fictitious. She was fond of dress; impatient to 
be admired ; very romantic in her turn of mind ; superior, in her own opinion, 
to all her sex ; full of pertness, gayety, and pride ; not without some agreeable 
accomphshments, but far from being either beautiful or genteel; . . . happy 
in the thoughts of being reported Swift's concubine, but still aiming and intend- 
ing to be his wife. " — Lord Orrery. 

t "You bid me be easy, and you would see me as often as you could. You 
had better have said, as often as you can get the better of your incHnations so 
much ; or as often as you remember there was such a one in the world. If you 
continue to treat me as you do, you will not be made uneasy by me long. It 
is impossible to describe what I have suffered since I saw you last ; I am sure 
I could have borne the rack much better than those killing words of yours. 
Sometimes I have resolved to die without seeing you more ; but those resolves, 
to your misfortune, did not last long ; for there is something in human nature 
that prompts one so to find reUef in this world I must give way to it, and beg 
you would see me, and speak kindly to me ; for I am sure you'd not condemn 
any one to suffer what I have done, could you but know it. The reason I 
write to you is, because I cannot tell it to you should I see you; for when I 
begin to complain, then you are angry, and there is something in your looks 
so awful that it strikes me dumb. Oh ! that vou may have but so much regard 



SWIFT 39 

are bringing him home from church, those divine feet of 
Doctor Swift's are found pretty often in Vanessa's parlor. 
He Hkes to be admired and adored. He finds Miss Van- 
homrigh to be a woman of great taste and spirit, and beauty 
and wit, and a fortune too. He sees her every day ; he does 5 
not tell Stella about the business; until the impetuous Va- 
nessa becomes too fond of him, until the Doctor is quite 
frightened by the young woman's ardor, and confounded by 
her warmth. He wanted to marry neither of them — that I 
beheve was the truth ; but if he had not married Stella, 10 
Vanessa would have had him in spite of himself. When he 
went back to Ireland, his Ariadne, not content to remain in 
her isle, pursued the fugitive Dean. In vain he protested, 
he vowed, he soothed, and bullied; the news of the Dean's 
marriage with Stella at last came to her, and it killed her — 15 
she died of that passion.* 

for me left that this complaint may touch your soul with pity. I say as little 
as ever I can; did you but know what I thought, I am sure it would move 
you to forgive me; and believe I cannot help telUng you this and live." — 
Vanessa. (M. 1714.) 

*"If we consider Swift's behavior, so far only as it relates to women, we 
shall find that he looked upon them rather as busts than as whole figures." — 
Orrery. 

"You would have smiled to have found his house a constant seraglio of 
very virtuous women, who attended him from morning till night." — Orrery. 

A correspondent of Sir Walter Scott's furnished him with the materials on 
which to found the following interesting passage about Vanessa — after she had 
retired to cherish her passion in retreat : — 

"Marley Abbey, near Celbridge, where Miss Vanhomrigh resided, is built 
much in the form of a real cloister, especially in its external appearance. An 
aged man (upwards of ninety, by his own account) showed the grounds to my 
correspondent. He was the son of Mrs. Vanhomrigh's gardener, and used to 
work with his father in the garden when a boy. He remembered the unfor- 
tunate Vanessa well; and his account of her corresponded with the usual de- 
scription of her person, especially as to her embonpoint. He said she went 
seldom abroad, and saw little company : her constant amusement was reading, 
or walking in the garden. . . . She avoided company, and was always melan- 
choly, save when Dean Swift was there, and then she seemed happy. The 
garden was to an uncommon degree crowded with laurels. The old man said 
that when Miss Vanhomrigh expected the Dean she always planted with her 



^o ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

And when she died, and Stella heard that Swift had written 
beautifully regarding her, ''That doesn't surprise me," said 
Mrs. Stella, ''for we all know the Dean could write beauti- 
fully about a broomstick." A woman — a true woman ! 
5 Would you have had one of them forgive the other ? 

own hand a laurel or two against his arrival. He showed her favorite seat, 
still called 'Vanessa's bower.' Three or four trees and some laurels indicate 
the spot. . . . There were two seats and a rude table within the bower, the 
opening of which commanded a view of the Liffey. ... In this sequestered 
spot, according to the old gardener's account, the Dean and Vanessa used 
often to sit, with books and writing materials on the table before them." — 
Scott's Swifi, vol. i. pp. 246-47. 

"... But Miss Vanhomrigh, irritated at the situation in which she foimd 
herself, determined on bringing to a crisis those expectations of a union with the 
object of her affections — to the hope of which she had clung amid every vicissi- 
tude of his conduct towards her. The most probable bar was his undefined 
connection with Mrs. Johnson, which, as it must have been perfectly known 
to her, had, doubtless, long excited her secret jealousy, although only a single 
hint to that purpose is to be found in their correspondence, and that so early as 
1 7 13, when she writes to him — then in Ireland — 'If you are very happy, it is 
ill-natured of you not to tell me so, except 'tis what is inconsistent with mine.^ 
Her silence and patience under this state of uncertainty for no less than eight 
years, must have been partly owing to her awe for Swift, and partly, perhaps, 
to the weak state of her rival's health, which, from year to year, seemed to 
announce speedy dissolution. At length, however, Vanessa's impatience pre- 
vailed, and she ventured on the decisive step of writing to Mrs. Johnson herself, 
requesting to know the nature of that connection. Stella, in reply, informed her 
of her marriage with the Dean ; and full of the highest resentment against Swift 
for having given another female such a right in him as Miss Vanhomrigh' s in- 
quiries implied, she sent to him her rival's letter of interrogation, and without 
seeing him, or awaiting his reply, retired to the house of Mr. Ford, near Dublin. 
Every reader knows the consequence. Swift, in one of those paroxysms of fury 
to which he was liable, both from temper and disease, rode instantly to Marley 
Abbey. As he entered the apartment, the sternness of his countenance, which 
was peculiarly formed to express the fiercer passions, struck the unfortunate 
Vanessa with such terror that she could scarce ask whether he would not sit 
down. He answered by flinging a letter on the table, and, instantly leaving the 
house, mounted his horse, and returned to DubHn. When Vanessa opened the 
packet, she only found her own letter to Stella. It was her death warrant. She 
sunk at once under the disappointment of the delayed yet cherished hopes 
which had so long sickened her heart, and beneath the unrestrained wrath of 
him for whose sake she had indulged them. How long she survived this last 
interview is uncertain, but the time does not seem to have exceeded a few weeks." 
— Scott. 



SWIFT 41 

In a note in his biography, Scott says that his friend Doctor 
Tuke, of DubHn, has a lock of Stella's hair, inclosed in a paper 
by Swift, on which are written in the Dean's hand, the words : 
"Only a woman's hair.'' An instance, says Scott, of the 
Dean's desire to veil his feelings under the mask of cynical 5 
indifference. 

See the various notions of critics ! Do those words indi- 
cate indifference or an attempt to hide feeling? Did you 
ever hear or read four words more pathetic ? Only a woman's 
hair ; only love, only fidelity, only purity, innocence, beauty ; 10 
only the tenderest heart in the world stricken and wounded, 
and passed away now out of reach of pangs of hope deferred, 
love insulted, and pitiless desertion : — only that lock of hair 
left ; and memory and remorse, for the guilty lonely wretch, 
shuddering over the grave of his victim.* 15 

And yet to have had so much love, he must have given some. 
Treasures of wit and wisdom, and tenderness, too, must that 
man have had locked up in the caverns of his gloomy heart, 
and shown fitfully to one or two whom he took in there. But 
it was not good to visit that place. People did not remain 20 
there long, and suffered for having been there.f He shrank 
away from all affection sooner or later. Stella and Vanessa 
both died near him, and away from him. He had not heart 
enough to see them die. He broke from his fastest friend, 
Sheridan ; he slunk away from his fondest admirer, Pope. 25 

* Thackeray wrote to Hay ward, who had said something of this lecture 
when originally delivered, and had apparently misunderstood this passage, 
that the phrase quoted seemed to him to be "the most affecting words I ever 
heard, indicating the truest love, passion, and remorse." — Hayivard Corre- 
spondence, i. 119. 

t "M. Swift est Rabelais dans son bon sens, et vivant en bonne compagnie. - 
II n'a pas, a la verite, la gaite du premier, mais il a toute la finesse, la raison, 
le choix, le bon gout qui manquent a notre cure de Meudon. Ses vers sont 
d'un gout singulier, et presque inimitable ; la bonne plaisanterie est son partage 
en vers et en prose; mais pour le bien entendre il faut faire un petit voyage 
dans son pays." — Voltaire. Lettres sur les Anglais. Lettre XX. 



42 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

His laugh jars on one's ear after sevenscore years. He was 
always alone — alone and gnashing in the darkness, except 
when Stella's sweet smile came and shone upon him. When 
that went, silence and utter night closed over him. An im- 
5 mense genius : an awful downfall and ruin. So great a man 
he seems to me, that thinking of him is like thinking of an 
empire falling. We have other great names to mention — 
none I think, however, so great or so gloomy. 



CONGREVE AND ADDISON 

A great number of years ago, before the passing of the 
Reform Bill, there existed at Cambridge a certain debating 
club, called the ''Union"; and I remember that there was 
a tradition amongst the undergraduates who frequented that 
renowned school of oratory, that the great leaders of theS 
Opposition and Government had their eyes upon the Univer- 
sity Debating Club, and that if a man distinguished himself 
there he ran some chance of being returned to Parliament as a 
great nobleman's nominee. So Jones of John's, or Thomson of 
Trinity, would rise in their might, and draping themselves in lo 
their gowns, rally round the monarchy, or hurl defiance at 
priests and kings, with the majesty of Pitt or the fire of Mira- 
beau, fanc)dng all the while that the great nobleman's emis- 
sary was listening to the debate from the back benches, 
where he was sitting with the family seat in his pocket. 15 
Indeed, the legend said that one or two young Canibridge 
men, orators of the ''Union," were actually caught up thence, 
and carried down to Cornwall or Old Sarum, and so into 
Parliament. And many a young fellow deserted the jogtrot 
University curriculum, to hang on in the dust behind the 20 
fervid wheels of the parliamentary chariot. 

Where, I have often wondered, were the sons of Peers and 
Members of Parliament in Anne's and George's time ? Were 
they all in the army, or hunting in the country, or boxing the 
watch? How was it that the young gentlemen from the 25 
University got such a prodigious number of places ? A lad 
composed a neat copy of verses at Christchurch or Trinity, 

43 



44 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

in which the death of a great personage was bemoaned, the 
French King assailed, the Dutch or Prince Eugene comph- 
mented, or the reverse ; and the party in power was presently 
to provide for the young poet ; and a commissionership, or a 

5 post in the Stamps, or the secretaryship of an Embassy, or a 
clerkship in the Treasury, came into the bard's possession. A 
wonderful fruit-bearing rod was that of Busby's. What 
have men of letters got in our time? Think, not only of 
Swift, a king fit to rule in any time or empire — but Addison, 

lo Steele, Prior, Tickell, Congreve, John Gay, John Dennis, and 
many others, who got public employment, and pretty little 
pickings out of the public purse.* The wits of whose 
names we shall treat in this lecture and two following, all 
(save one) touched the king's coin, and had, at some 

IS period of their lives, a happy quarter day coming round 
for them. 

They all began at school or college in the regular way, pro- 
ducing panegyrics upon public characters, what were called 

* The following is a conspectus of them : 

Addison. — Commissioner of Appeals ; Undersecretary of State ; Secretary 
to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland ; Keeper of the Records in 
Ireland; Lord of Trade; and one of the Principal Secretaries 
of State, successively. 

Steele. — Commissioner of the Stamp Office; Surveyor of the Royal Stables 
at Hampton Court ; and Governor of the Royal Company of 
Comedians; Commissioner of "Forfeited Estates in Scotland." 

Prior. — Secretary to the Embassy at the Hague ; Gentleman of the Bed- 
chamber to King William ; Secretary to the Embassy in France ; 
Undersecretary of State ; Ambassador to France. 

Tickell. — Undersecretary of State ; Secretary to the Lords Justices of 
Ireland. 

Congreve. — Commissioner for licensing Hackney Coaches ; Commissioner for 
Wine Licenses; place in the Pipe Office; post in the Custom 
House ; Secretary of Jamaica. 

Gay. — Secretary to the Earl of Clarendon (when Ambassador to Hanover). 

John Dennis. — A place in the Custom House. 

"En Angleterre . . . les lettres sont plus en honneur qu'ici." — Voltaire. 
Lettres sur les Anglais. Lettre XX. 



CONGREVE AND ADDISON 45 

odes upon public events, battles, sieges. Court marriages and 
deaths, in which the gods of Olympus and the tragic muse were 
fatigued with invocations, according to the fashion of the 
time in France and in England. ''Aid us. Mars, Bacchus, 
Apollo," cried Addison, or Congreve, singing of William or 5 
Marlborough. "Accourez, chastes nymphes du Permesse," 
says Boileau, celebrating the Grand Monarch. "Des sons 
que ma lyre enfante ces arbres sont rejouis ; marquez-en 
bien la cadence ; et vous, vents, faites silence ! je vais parler 
de Louis!" Schoolboys' themes and foundation exercises 10 
are the only relics left now of this scholastic fashion. The 
Olympians are left quite undisturbed in their mountain. What 
man of note, what contributor to the poetry of a country 
newspaper, would now think of writing a congratulatory 
ode on the birth of the heir to a dukedom, or the marriage of a 15 
nobleman ? In the past century the young gentlemen of the 
Universities all exercised themselves at these queer composi- 
tions ; and some got fame, and some gained patrons and places 
for life, and many more took nothing by these efforts of what 
they were pleased to call their muses. 20 

William Congreve's* Pindaric Odes are still to be found in 
"Johnson's Poets," that now unfrequented poets'-corner, in 
which so many forgotten bigwigs have a niche ; but though 
he was also voted to be one of the greatest tragic poets of 
any day, it was Congreve's wit and humor which first recom- 25 
mended him to courtly fortune. And it is recorded that his 
first play, the ''Old Bachelor," brought our author to the 
notice of that great patron of EngHsh muses, Charles Mon- 
tague, Lord HaHfax — who, being desirous to place so eminent 
a wit in a state of ease and tranquiUity, instantly made him 30 
one of the Commissioners for hcensing hackney coaches, 

* He was the son of Colonel William Congreve, and grandson of Richard 
Congreve, Esquire, of Congreve and Stretton in StafiEordshire — a very ancient 
family. 



46 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

bestowed on him soon after a place in the Pipe Office, and like- 
wise a post in the Custom House of the value of £600.* 

A commissionership of hackney coaches — a post in the 
Custom House — a place in the Pipe Office, and all for writing 
5 a comedy ! Doesn't it sound like a fable, that place in the 
Pipe Office ?t " Ah, I'heureux temps que celui de ces fables ! " 
Men of letters there still be : but I doubt whether any Pipe 
Offices are left. The public has smoked them long ago. 
Words, like men, pass current for a while with the public, 

10 and, being known everywhere abroad, at length take their 
places in society ; so even the most secluded and refined ladies 
here present will have heard the phrase from their sons or 
brothers at school, and will permit me to call William Con- 
greve. Esquire, the most eminent Hterary "swell" of his age. 

15 In my copy of "Johnson's Lives" Congreve's wig is the tallest, 
and put on with the jauntiest air of all the laureled worthies. 
"I am the great Mr. Congreve," he seems to say, looking 
out from his voluminous curls. People called him the great 
Mr. Congreve. J From the beginning of his career until the 

* The Old Bachelor was produced January 1693. Congreve was made Com- 
missioner of Hackney Coaches in 1695. 

t "Pipe. — Pipa, in law, is a roll in the Exchequer, called also the great 
roll. 

"Pipe Office is an office in which a person called the Clerk of the Pipe makes 
out leases of Crown lands, by warrant from the Lord Treasurer, or Commis- 
sioners of the Treasury, or Chancellor of the Exchequer. 

" Clerk of the Pipe makes up all accounts of sheriffs, &c." — Rees : Cyclopced. 
Art. Pipe. 

"Pipe Office. — Spelman thinks so called, because the papers were kept in 
a large pipe or cask. 

'"These be at last brought into that office of 'her Majesty's Exchequer, which 
we, by a metaphor, do call the pipe . . . because the whole receipt is finally 
conveyed into it by means of divers small pipes or quills.' — Bacon : The Office 
of Alienations." 

[We are indebted to Richardson's Dictionary for this fragment of erudition. 
But a modern man of letters can know little on these points — by experience.] 

J "It has been observed that no change of Ministers affected him in the 
least ; nor was he ever removed from any post that was given to him, except 
to a better. His place in the Custom House, and his office of Secretary in 



CONGREVE AND ADDISON 47 

end everybody admired him. Having got his education in 
Ireland, at the same school and college with Swift, he came to 
live in the Middle Temple, London, where he luckily be- 
stowed no attention to the law ; but splendidly frequented the 
coffeehouses and theaters, and appeared in the side box, the s 
tavern, the Piazza, and the Mall, brilliant, beautiful, and vic- 
torious from the first. Everybody acknowledged the young 
chieftain. The great Mr. Dry den* declared that he was equal 
to Shakespeare, and bequeathed to him his own undisputed 
poetical crown, and writes of him : ''Mr. Congreve has done lo 
me the favor to review the 'iEneis' and compare my version 
with the original. I shall never be ashamed to own that this 

Jamaica, are said to have brought him in upwards of twelve hundred a year." — 
Biog. Brit. Art. Congreve. 

* Dry den addressed his "twelfth epistle" to "My dear friend, Mr. Con- 
greve," on his comedy called the Double Dealer, in which he says : — ■ 

" Great Jonson did by strength of judgment please ; 
Yet, doubling Fletcher's force, he wants his ease. 
In differing talents both adorned their age : 
One for the study, t'other for the stage. 
But both to Congreve justly shall submit. 
One match'd in judgment, both o'ermatched in wit. 
In him all beauties of this age we see," &c. &c. 

The Double Dealer, however, was not so palpable a hit as the Old Bachelor, 
but, at first, met with opposition. The critics having fallen foul of it, oiir 
"Swell" applied the scourge to that presumptuous body, in the "Epistle Dedica- 
tory" to the "Right Honorable Charles Montague." 

"I was conscious," said he, "where a true critic might have put me upon 
my defense. I was prepared for the attack . . . but I have not heard anything 
said svifficient to provoke an answer." 

He goes on — ■ 

"But there is One thing at which I am more concerned than all the false 
criticisms that are made upon me ; and that is, some of the ladies are offended. 
I am heartily sorry for it ; for I declare, I would rather disobUge all the critics 
in the world than one of the fair sex. They are concerned that I have repre- 
sented some women vicious and affected. How can I help it ? It is the busi- 
ness of a comic poet to paint the vices and follies of human kind. ... I should 
be very glad of an opportunity to make my compliments to those ladies who 
are offended. But they can no more expect it in a comedy, than to be tickled by 
a surgeon when he is letting their blood" 



48 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

excellent young man has showed me many faults which I have 
endeavored to correct." 

The ''excellent young man" was but three or four and 
twenty when the great Dryden thus spoke of him: the 
5 greatest literary chief in England, the veteran field marshal 
of letters, himself the marked man of all Europe, and the 
center of a school of wits who daily gathered round his chair 
and tobacco pipe at Will's. Pope dedicated his ''Iliad" to 
him ;* Swift, Addison, Steele, all acknowledge Congreve's 

lorank, and lavish compliments upon him. Voltaire went to 
wait upon him as on one of the Representatives of Literature ; 
and the man who scarce praises any other living person — who 
flung abuse at Pope, and Swift, and Steele, and Addison — the 
Grub Street Timon, old John Dennis, f was hat in hand to 

15 Mr. Congreve ; and said that when he retired from the stage, 
Comedy went with him. 

Nor was he less victorious elsewhere. He was admired in 
the drawing-rooms as well as the coffeehouses; as much 
beloved in the side-box as on the stage. He loved, and con- 

2oquered, and jilted the beautiful Bracegirdle,| the heroine of 

* "Instead of endeavoring to raise a vain monument to myself, let me leave 
behind me a memorial of my friendship with one of the most valuable men as 
well as finest writers of my age and country — one who has tried, and knows 
by his own experience, how hard an undertaking it is to do justice to Homer — 
and one who, I am sure, seriously rejoices with me at the period of my labors. 
To him, therefore, having brought this long work to a conclusion, I desire to 
dedicate it, and to have the honor and satisfaction of placing together in this 
manner the names of Mr. Congreve and of — A. Pope." — Postscript to Trans- 
lation of the Iliad of Homer, March 25, 1720. 

t "When asked why he listened to the praises of Dennis, he said he had 
much rather be flattered than abused. Swift had a particular friendship for our 
author, and generously took him under his protection in his high authoritative 
manner." — Thos. Davies. Dramatic Miscellanies. 

X " Congreve was very intimate for years with Mrs. Bracegirdle, and lived 
in the same street, his house very near hers, until his acquaintance with the 
young Duchess of Marlborough. He then quitted that house. The Duchess 
showed me a diamond necklace (which Lady Di used afterwards to wear) that 
cost seven thousand pounds, and was purchased with the money Congreve left 



CONGREVE AND ADDISON 49 

all his plays, the favorite of all the town of her day ; and the 
Duchess of Marlborough, Marlborough's daughter, had such 
an admiration of him, that when he died she had an ivory 
figure made to imitate him,* and a large wax doll with gouty 
feet to be dressed just as the great Congreve's gouty feet were s 
dressed in his great lifetime. He saved some money by his 
Pipe office, and his Custom House office, and his Hackney 
Coach office, and nobly left it, not to Bracegirdle,t who wanted 
it, but to the Duchess of Marlborough, who didn't. J 

How can I introduce to you that merry and shameless Comic lo 
Muse who won him such a reputation ? Nell Gwynn's servant 
fought the other footman for having called his mistress a bad 
name; and in like manner, and with pretty little epithets, 
Jeremy Collier attacked that godless reckless Jezebel, the 
English comedy of his time, and called her what Nell Gwynn's 15 

her. How much better would it have been to have given it to poor Mrs. Brace- 
girdle." — Dr. Young. Spence's Anecdotes. 

* "A glass was put in the hand of the statue, which was supposed to bow 
to her Grace and to nod in approbation of what she spoke to it." — Thos. 
Davies. Dramatic Miscellanies. 

t The sum Congreve left Mrs. Bracegirdle was £200, as is said in the Dramatic 
Miscellanies of Tom Davies; where are some particulars about this charming 
actress and beautiful woman. 

She had a "lively aspect," says Tom, on the authority of Gibber, and "sucTi 
a glow of health and cheerfulness in her countenance, as inspired everybody with 
desire." " Scarce an audience saw her that were not half of them her lovers." 

Gongreve and Rowe courted her in the persons of their lovers. "In Tamer- 
lane, Rowe courted her Selima, in the person of Axalla . . .; Gongreve in- 
sinuated his addresses in his Valentine to her Angelica, in Love for Love; in his 
Osmyn to her Almena, in the Mourning Bride; and, lastly, in his Mirabel to 
her Millamant, in the Way of the World. Mirabel, the fine gentleman of the play, 
is, I believe, not very distant from the real character of Gongreve." — Dramatic 
Miscellanies, vol. iii. 1784. 

She retired from the stage when Mrs. Oldfield began to be the pubHc favorite. 
She died in 1748, in the eighty-fifth year of her age. 

t Johnson calls his legacy the "accumulation of attentive parsimony, which," 
he continues, "though to her (the Duchess) superfluous and useless, might have 
given great assistance to the ancient family from which he descended, at that 
time, by the imprudence of his relation, reduced to difficulties and distress." — 
Lives of the Poets. 



50 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

man's fellow-servants called Nell Gwynn's man's mistress. 
The servants of the theater, Dryden, Congreve,* and others, 
defended themselves with the same success, and for the same 
cause which set Nell's lackey fighting. She was a dis- 
5 reputable, daring, laughing, painted French baggage, that 
Comic Muse. She came over from the Continent with Charles 
(who chose many more of his female friends there) at the 
Restoration — a wild dishevelled Lais, with eyes bright with 
wit and wine — a saucy Court favorite that sat at the King's 

lo knees, and laughed in his face, and when she showed her bold 
cheeks at her chariot window, had some of the noblest and 
most famous people of the land bowing round her wheel. She 
was kind and popular enough, that daring Comedy, that auda- 
cious poor Nell : she was gay and generous, kind, frank, as 

15 such people can afford to be : and the men who Uved with her 
and laughed with her, took her pay and drank her wine, 
turned out, when the Puritans hooted her, to fight and defend 
her. But the jade was indefensible, and it is pretty certain 
her servants knew it. 

20 There is life and death going on in everything : truth and 
lies always at battle. Pleasure is always warring against self- 

* He replied to Collier, in the pamphlet called Amendments of Mr. Collier's 
False and Imperfect Citations, &c. A specimen or two are subjoined : — 

"The greater part of these examples which he has produced are only demon- 
strations of his own impurity : they only savor of his utterance, and were sweet 
enough till tainted by his breath. 

"Where the expression is unblamable in its own pure and genuine significa- 
tion, he enters into it, himself, like the evil spirit; he possesses the innocent 
phrase, and makes it bellow forth his own blasphemies. 

"If I do not return him civilities in calling him names, it is because I am 
not very well versed in his nomenclatures. ... I will only call him Mr. Collier, 
and that I will call him as often as I think he shall deserve it. 

"The corruption of a rotten divine is the generation of a sour critic." 

"Congreve," says Doctor Johnson, "a very young man, elated with success, 
and impatient of censure, assumed an air of confidence and security. . . . The 
dispute was protracted through ten years ; but at last comedy grew more modest, 
and Collier lived to see the reward of his labors in the reformation of the theater." 
— Life of Congreve. 



CONGREVE AND ADDISON 51 

restraint. Doubt is always crying Psha ! and sneering. A ' 
man in life, a humorist, in writing about life, sways over to 
one principle or the other, and laughs with the reverence for 
right and the love of truth in his heart, or laughs at these from 
the other side. Didn't I tell you that dancing was a serious 5 
business to Harlequin ? I have read two or three of Congreve's 
plays over before speaking of him; and my feelings were 
rather like those, which I dare say most of us here have had, 
at Pompeii, looking at Sallust's house and the relics of an 
orgy ; a dried wine jar or two, a charred supper table, the 10 
breast of a dancing girl pressed against the ashes, the laugh- 
ing skull of a jester : a perfect stillness round about, as the 
cicerone twangs his moral, and the blue sky shines calmly 
over the ruin. The Congreve Muse is dead, and her song 
choked in Time's ashes. We gaze at the skeleton, and 15 
wonder at the life which once revelled in its mad veins. We 
take the skull up, and muse over the frohc and daring, the 
wit, scorn, passion, hope, desire, with which that empty bowl 
once fermented. We think of the glances that allured, the 
tears that melted, of the bright eyes that shone in those va- 20 
cant sockets; and of lips whispering love, and cheeks dim- 
pling with smiles, that once covered yon ghastly yellow frame- 
work. They used to call those teeth pearls once. See, 
there's the cup she drank from, the gold chain she wore on 
her neck, the vase which held the rouge for her cheeks, her 25 
looking-glass, and the harp she used to dance to. Instead 
of a feast we find a gravestone, and in place of a mistress, a , 
few bones ! 

Reading in these plays now, is like shutting your ears and 
looking at people dancing. What does it mean ? the meas- 30 
ures, the grimaces, the bowing, shuffling, and retreating, the 
cavalier seul advancing upon those ladies — those ladies and 
men twirling round at the end in a mad galop, after which 
everybody bows and the quaint rite is celebrated. Without 



52 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

the music we can't understand that comic dance of the last 
century — its strange gravity and gayety, its decorum or its 
indecorum. It has a jargon of its own quite unHke hfe; a 
sort of moral of its own quite unlike life too. I'm afraid it's a 
5 Heathen mystery, symbolizing a Pagan doctrine ; protesting 
— as the Pompeians very likely were, assembled at their 
theater and laughing at their games ; as Sallust and his 
friends, and their mistresses protested, crowned with flowers, 
with cups in their hands — against the new, hard, ascetic, 

lo pleasure-hating doctrine whose gaunt disciples, lately passed 
over from the Asian shores of the Mediterranean, were for 
breaking the fair images of Venus and flinging the altars of 
Bacchus down. 

I fancy poor Congreve's theater is a temple of Pagan de- 

15 lights, and mysteries not permitted except among heathens. 
I fear the theater carries down that ancient tradition and 
worship, as masons have carried their secret signs and rites 
from temple to temple. When the libertine hero carries off the 
beauty in the play, and the dotard is laughed to scorn for 

20 having the young wife : in the ballad, when the poet bids his 
mistress to gather roses while she may, and warns her that 
old Time is still a-flying : in the ballet, when honest Corydon 
courts Phillis under the treillage of the pasteboard cottage, and 
leers at her over the head of grandpapa in red stockings, who 

25 is opportunely asleep ; and when seduced by the invitations of 
the rosy youth she comes forward to the footlights, and they 
perform on each other's tiptoes that pas which you all know, 
and which is only interrupted by old grandpapa awaking 
from his doze at the pasteboard chalet (whither he returns to 

30 take another nap in case the young people get an encore) : 
when Harlequin, splendid in youth, strength, and agility, 
arrayed in gold and a thousand colors, springs over the heads 
of countless perils, leaps down the throat of bewildered giants, 
and, dauntless and splendid, dances danger down : when 



CONGREVE AND ADDISON 53 

Mr. Punch, that godless old rebel, breaks every law and 
laughs at it with odious triumph, outwits his lawyer, bulHes 
the beadle, knocks his wife about the head, and hangs the 
hangman, — don't you see in the comedy, in the song, in the 
dance, in the ragged Httle Punch's puppet-show — the Pagan 5 
protest ? Doesn't it seem as if Life puts in its plea and sings 
its comment? Look how the lovers walk and hold each 
other's hands and whisper! Sings the chorus — "There is 
nothing Hke love, there is nothing like youth, there is nothing 
like beauty of your springtime. Look ! how old age tries to 10 
meddle with merry sport ! Beat him with his own crutch, the 
wrinkled old dotard ! There is nothing like youth, there is 
nothing Hke beauty, there is nothing like strength. Strength 
and valor win beauty and youth. Be brave and conquer. 
Be young and happy. Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy ! Would you 15 
know the Segreto per esser felice? Here it is, in a smiling 
mistress and a cup of Falernian." As the boy tosses the cup 
and sings his song — hark ! what is that chant coming nearer 
and nearer ? What is that dirge which will disturb us ? The 
lights of the festival burn dim — the cheeks turn pale — the 20 
voice quavers — and the cup drops on the floor. Who's 
there? Death and Fate are at the gate, and they will 
come in. 

Congreve's comic feast flares with lights, and round the 
table, emptying their flaming bowls of drink, and exchanging 25 
the wildest jests and ribaldry, sit men and women, waited on 
by rascally valets and attendants as dissolute as their mis- 
tresses — perhaps the very worst company in the world. 
There doesn't seem to be a pretense of morals. At the head 
of the table sits Mirabel or Belmour (dressed in the French 30 
fashion and waited on by English imitators of Scapin and 
Frontin). Their calling is to be irresistible, and to conquer 
everywhere. Like the heroes of the chivalry story, whose 
long-winded loves and combats they were sending out of 



54 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

fashion, they are always splendid and triumphant — over- 
come all dangers, vanquish all enemies, and win the beauty 
at the end. Fathers, husbands, usurers, are the foes these 
champions contend with. They are merciless in old age, 
5 invariably, and an old man plays the part in the dramas 
which the wicked enchanter or the great blundering giant 
performs in the chivalry tales, who threatens and grumbles 
and resists — a huge stupid obstacle always overcome by the 
knight. It is an old man with a money box : Sir Belmour his 

lo son or nephew spends his money and laughs at him. It is an 
old man with a young wife whom he locks up : Sir Mirabel 
robs him of his wife, trips up his gouty old heels and leaves the 
old hunks. The old fool, what business has he to hoard his 
money, or to lock up blushing eighteen ? Money is for youth, 

15 love is for youth, away with the old people. When Millamant 
is sixty, having of course divorced the first Lady Millamant, 
and married his friend Doricourt's granddaughter out of the 
nursery — it will be his turn ; and young Belmour will make a 
fool of him. All this pretty morality you have in the come- 

20 dies of William Congreve, Esquire. They are full of wit. 
Such manners as he observes, he observes with great humor ; 
but ah ! it's a weary feast, that banquet of wit where no love 
is. It palls very soon ; sad indigestions follow it and lonely 
blank headaches in the morning. 

25 I can't pretend to quote scenes from the splendid Congreve's 
plays* — which are undeniably bright, witty, and daring — 

* The scene of Valentine's pretended madness in Love for Love is a splendid 
specimen of Congreve's daring manner : — 

'^Scandal. And have you given your master a hint of their plot upon him? 

''Jeremy. Yes, sir; he says he'll favor it, and mistake her for Angelica. 

"Scandal. It may make us sport. 

"Foresight. Mercy on us ! 

" Valentine. Husht — interrupt me not — I'll whisper predictions to thee, 
and thou shalt prophesie ; — I am truth, and can teach thy tongue a new trick, 
— I have told thee what's passed — now I'll tell what's to come : — Dost thou 
know what will happen to-morrow ? Answer me not — for I will tell thee. 



CONGREVE AND ADDISON 55 

any more than I could ask you to hear the dialogue of a witty 
bargeman and a brilliant fishwoman exchanging compliments 
at Billingsgate ; but some of his verses — they were amongst 
the most famous lyrics of the time, and pronounced equal to 

To-morrow knaves will thrive thro* craft, and fools thro' fortune : and honesty 
will go as it did, frost-nipt in a summer suit. Ask me questions concerning to- 
morrow. 

^^ Scandal. Ask him, Mr. Foresight. ' . 

^'■Foresight. Pray what will be done at Court? 

" Valentine. Scandal will tell you; — I am truth, I never come there. 

"Foresight. In the city? 

" Valentine. Oh, prayers will be said in empty churches at the usual hours. 
Yet you will see such zealous faces behind counters as if religion were to be sold 
in every shop. Oh, things will go methodically in the city, the clocks will strike 
twelve at noon, and the horn'd herd buzz in the Exchange at two. Husbands 
and wives will drive distinct trades, and care and pleasure separately occupy 
the family. Coffeehouses will be full of smoke and stratagem. And the cropt 
'prentice that sweeps his master's shop in the morning, may, ten to one, dirty 
his sheets before night. But there are two things, that you will see very strange ; 
which are, wanton wives with their legs at liberty, and tame cuckolds with chains 
about their necks. But hold, I must examine you before I go further; you look 
suspiciously. Are you a husband? 

"Foresight. I am married. 

" Valentine. Poor creature ! Is your wife of Covent-garden Parish? 

"Foresight. No; St. Martin' s-in-the-Fields. 

"Valentine. Alas, poor man! his eyes are sunk, and his hands shrivelled; 
his legs dwindled, and his back bow'd. Pray, pray for a metamorphosis — 
change thy shape, and shake off age ; get thee Medea's kettle and be boiled anew ; 
come forth with lab 'ring callous hands, and chine of steel, and Atlas' shoulders. 
Let Taliacotius trim the calves of twenty chairmen, and make thee pedestals 
to stand erect upon, and look matrimony in the face. Ha, ha, ha ! That a 
man should have a stomach to a wedding supper, when the pigeons ought 
rather to be laid to his feet ! Ha, ha, ha ! 

"Foresight. His frenzy is very high, now, Mr. Scandal. 

"Scandal. I believe it is a spring-tide. 

"Foresight. Very likely — truly; you understand these matters. Mr. 
Scandal, I shall be very glad to confer with you about these things he has uttered. 
His sayings are very mysterious and hieroglyphical. 

" Valentine. Oh ! why would Angelica be absent from my eyes so long? 

"Jeremy. She's here, sir. 

"Mrs. Foresight. Now, sister! 

"Mrs. Frail. O Lord! what must I say? 

"Scandal. Humor him, madam, by all means. 

" Valentine. Where is she ? Oh ! I see her : she comes, Uke Riches, Health, 



56 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

Horace by his contemporaries — may give an idea of his power, 
of his grace, of his daring manner, his magnificence in com- 
pliment, and his polished sarcasm. He writes as if he was so 

and Liberty at once, to a despairing, starving, and abandoned wretch. Oh — 
welcome, welcome ! 

"Mrs. Frail. How d'j^e, sir? Can I serve you? 

" Valentine. Hark'ee — I have a secret to tell you. Endymion and the 
moon shall meet us on Mount Latinos, and we'll be married in the dead of night. 
But say not a word. Hymen shall put his torch into a dark lanthorn, that it 
may be secret ; and Juno shall give her peacock poppy-water, that he may fold 
his ogling tail; and Argus's hundred eyes be shut — ha ! Nobody shall know^ 
but Jeremy. 

"Mrs. Frail. No, no; we'll keep it secret ; it shall be done presently. 

" Valentine. The sooner the better. Jeremy, come hither — closer — that none 
may overhear us. Jeremy, I can tell you news: Angelica is turned nun, and I 
am turning friar, and yet we'll marry one another in spite of the Pope. Get me 
a cowl and beads, that I may play my part ; for she'll meet me two hours hence 
in black and white, and a long veil to cover the project, and we won't see one 
another's faces 'till we have done something to be ashamed of, and then we'll 
blush once for all. . . . 

"Enter Tattle 

"Tattle. Do you know me, Valentine? 

" Valentine. You ! — who are you ? No, I hope not. 

"Tattle. I am Jack Tattle, your friend. 

"Valentine. My friend! What to do? I am no married man, and thou 
canst not lye with my wife ; I am very poor, and thou canst not borrow money 
of me. Then, what employment have I for a friend ? 

" Tattle. Hah ! A good open speaker, and not to be trusted with a secret. 

"Angelica. Do 3'ou know me, Valentine? 

" Valentine. Oh, very well. 

"Angelica. Who am I? 

" Valentine. You're a woman, one to whom Heaven gave beauty when it grafted 
roses on a brier. You are the reflection of Heaven in a pond ; and he that leaps 
at you is sunk. You are all white — a sheet of spotless paper — when you 
first are born ; but you are to be scrawled and blotted by every goose's quill. 
I know you ; for I loved a woman, and loved her so long that I found out a strange 
thing : I found out what a woman was good for. 

" Tattle. Ay ! pr'ythee, what's that ? 

" Valentine. Why, to keep a secret. 

" Tattle. O Lord ! 

" Valentine. Oh, exceeding good to keep a secret ; for, though she should tell, 
yet she is not to be believed. 

" Tattle. Hah ! Good again, faith. 



CONGREVE AND ADDISON 57 

accustomed to conquer, that he has a poor opinion of his 
victims. Nothing's new except their faces, says he : "every 
woman is the same." He says this in his first comedy, which 

" Valentine. I would have musick. Sing me the song that I Hke." — CoN- 
GREVE : Love for Love. 

There is a Mrs. Nicklehy, of the year 1700, in Congreve's comedy of the 
Double Dealer, in whose character the author introduces some wonderful traits 
of roguish satire. She is practiced on by the gallants of the play, and no more 
knows how to resist them than any of the ladies above quoted could resist 
Congreve. 

"Lady Plyant. Oh! reflect upon the horror of your conduct! Offering 
to pervert me" [the joke is that the gentleman is pressing the lady for her daugh- 
ter's hand, not for her own] — "perverting me from the road of virtue, in which 
I have trod thus long, and never made one trip — not one faux pas. Oh, con- 
sider it : what would you have to answer for, if you should provoke me to frailty ! 
Alas ! humanity is feeble, Heaven knows ! Very feeble, and unable to support 
itself. 

" Mellefont. Where am I? Is it day? and am I awake? Madam • 

"Lady Plyant. O Lord, ask me the question ! I swear I'll deny it — there- 
fore don't ask me; nay, you shan't ask me, I swear I'll deny it. O Gemini, you 
have brought all the blood into my face ; I warrant I am as red as a turkey-cock. 

fie, cousin Mellefont ! 

"Mellefont. Nay, madam, hear me; I mean 

"Lady Plyant. Hear you? No, no; I'll deny you first, and hear you 
afterwards. For one does not know how one's mind may change upon hearing 
— hearing is one of the senses ani all the senses are fallible. I won't trust my 
honor, I assure you; my honor is infallible and uncomatable. 

"Mellefont. For Heaven's sake, madam — -- 

"Lady Plyant. Oh, name it no more. Bless me, how can you talk of Heaven, 
and have so much wickedness in your heart ? May be, you don't think it a sin. 
They say some of you gentlemen don't think it a sin; but still, my honor, if it 

were no sin But, then, to marry my daughter for the convenience of 

frequent opportunities — I'll never consent to that : as sure as can be, I'll break 
the match. 

"Mellefont. Death and amazement! Madam, upon my knees 

"Lady Plyant. Nay, nay, rise up ! come, you shall see my good-nature. 

1 know love is powerful, and nobody can help his passion. 'Tis not your fault; 
nor I swear, it is not mine. How can I help it, if I have charms? And how 
can you help it, if you are made a captive ? I swear it is pity it should be a 
fault ; but, my honor. Well, but your honor, too — but the sin ! Well, but 
the necessity. O Lord, here's somebody coming. I dare not stay. Well, you 
must consider of your crime : and strive as much as can be against it — strive, be 
sure ; but don't be melancholick — don't despair ; but never think that I'll grant 
you anything. O Lord, no ; but be sure you lay aside all thoughts of the mar- 



58 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

he wrote languidly* in illness, when he was an "excellent 
young man." RicheHeu at eighty could have hardly said a 
more excellent thing. 

When he advances to make one of his conquests, it is with a 
5 splendid gallantry, in full uniform, and with the fiddles play- 
ing, like Grammont's French dandies attacking the breach of 
Lerida. 

'Xease, cease to ask her name," he writes of a young lady 
at the Wells of Tunbridge, whom he salutes with a magnifi- 
lo cent compliment — ' . 

" Cease, cease to ask her name, 
The crowned Muse's noblest theme, 
Whose glory by immortal fame 
Shall only sounded be. 
15 But if you long to know, 

Then look round yonder dazzling row ; 
Who most does like an angel show, 
You may be sure 'tis she." 

Here are lines about another beauty, who perhaps was not 
20 so well pleased at the poet's manner of celebrating her — 

"When Lesbia first I saw, so heavenly fair. 
With eyes so bright and with that awful air, 
I thought my heart which durst so high aspire 
As bold as his who snatched celestial fire. 

25 " But soon as e'er the beauteous idiot spoke, 

Forth from her coral lips such folly broke : 
Like balm the trickling nonsense heal'd my wound. 
And what her eyes enthralled, her tongue unbound." 

riage, for though I know you don't love Cynthia, only as a blind to your passion 
for me — yet it will make me jealous. O Lord, what did I say? Jealous! 
No, no, I can't be jealous ; for I must not love you. Therefore don't hope ; but 
don't despair neither. Oh, they're coming ; I must fly." — The Double Dealer, 
act ii. sc. V. page 156. 

* "There seems to be a strange affectation in authors of appearing to have 
done everything by chance. The Old Bachelor was written for amusement in the 
languor of convalescence. Yet it is apparently composed with great elaborate- 
ness of dialogue and incessant ambition of wit." — Johnson. Lives of the Poets. 



CONGREVE AND ADDISON 59 

Amoret is a cleverer woman than the lovely Lesbia, but the 
poet does not seem to respect one much more than the other ; 
and describes both with exquisite satirical humor — 

"Fair Amoret is gone astray : 

Pursue and seek her, every lover. 5 

I'll tell the signs by which you may 
The wandering shepherdess discover. 

" Coquet and coy at once her air, 

Both studied, though both seem neglected ; 
Careless she is with artful care, 10 

Aflfecting to seem unaffected. 

" With skill her eyes dart every glance, 

Yet change so soon you'd ne"er suspect them ; 
For she'd persuade they wound by chance. 

Though certain aim and art direct them. 15 

" She likes herself, yet others hates, 
For that which in herself she prizes ; 
And, while she laughs at them, forgets 
She is the thing that she despises." 

What could Amoret have done to bring down such shafts of 20 
ridicule upon her? Could she have resisted the irresistible 
Mr. Congreve ? Could anybody ? Could Sabina, when she 
woke and heard such a bard singing under her window? 
"See," he writes — 

" See ! see, she wakes — Sabina wakes ! 25 

And now the sun begins to rise. 
Less glorious is the morn, that breaks 

From his bright beams, than her fair eyes. 
With light united, day they give ; 

But different fates ere night fulfill : 30 

How many by his warmth will live ! 

How many will her coldness kill ! " 

Are you melted? Don't you think him a divine man? 
If not touched by the brilliant Sabina, hear the devout 
Selinda : — 



6o ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

"Pious Selinda goes to prayers, 

If I but ask the favor ; 
And yet the tender fool's in tears, 

When she beUeves I'll leave her : 
5 Would I were free from this restraint, 

Or else had hopes to win her : 
Would she could make of me a saint, 

Or I of her a sinner ! " 

What a conquering air there is about these ! What an 

lo irresistible Mr. Congreve it is ! Sinner ! of course he will be 
a sinner, the delightful rascal ! Win her ! of course he will 
win her, the victorious rogue ! He knows he will : he must — 
with such a grace, with such a fashion, with such a splendid 
embroidered suit. You see him with red-heeled shoes deli- 

15 ciously turned out, passing a fair jeweled hand through his 
disheveled periwig, and delivering a killing ogle alone with his 
scented billet. And Sabina ? What a comparison that is 
between the nymph and the sun ! The sun gives Sabina the 
pas, and does not venture to rise before her ladyship : the 

20 morn's bright beams are less glorious than her fair eyes; 
but before night everybody will be frozen by her glances: 
everybody but one lucky rogue who shall be nameless. Louis 
Quatorze in all his glory is hardly more splendid than our 
Phoebus Apollo of the Mall and Spring Gardens.* 

25 When Voltaire came to visit the great Congreve, the latter 
rather affected to despise his literary reputation, and in this 
perhaps the great Congreve was not far wrong, f A touch of 

* "Among those by whom it ('Will's') was frequented, Southerne and Con- 
greve were principally distinguished by Dryden's friendship. ... But Con- 
greve seems to have gained yet farther than Southerne upon Dryden's friendship. 
He was introduced to him by his first play, the celebrated Old Bachelor being 
put into the poet's hands to be revised. Dryden, after making a few alterations 
to fit it for the stage, returned it to the author with the high and just commenda- 
tion, that it was the best first play he had ever seen." — Scott's Dryden, 
vol. i. p. 370. 

t It was in Surrey Street, Strand (where he afterwards died), that Voltaire 
visited him, in the decline of his life. 



CONGREVE AND ADDISON 6i 

Steele's tenderness is worth all his finery; a flash of Swift's 
lightning, a beam of Addison's pure sunshine, and his tawdry 
playhouse taper is invisible. But the ladies loved him, and 
he was undoubtedly a pretty fellow.* 

The anecdote relating to his saying that he wished "to be visited on no 
other footing than as a gentleman who led a life of plainness and simplicity," 
is common to all writers on the subject of Congreve, and appears in the English 
version of Voltaire's Letters concerning the English Nation, published in London, 
1733, as also in Goldsmith's Memoir of Voltaire. But it is worthy of remark, 
that it does not appear in the text of the same Letters in the edition of Voltaire's 
CEuvres Completes in the "Pantheon Litteraire." Vol. v. of his works. (Paris, 
1837.) 

"Celui de tous les Anglais qui a porte le plus loin la gloire du theatre comique 
est feu M. Congreve. II n'a fait que peu de pieces, mais toutes sont excellentes 
dans leur genre. . . . Vous y voyez partout le langage des honnetes gens avec 
des actions de fripon; ce qui prouve qu'il connaissait bien son monde, et qu'il 
vivait dans ce qu'on appelle la bonne compagnie." — Voltaire. Lettres sur 
les Anglais. Lettre XIX. 

* On the death of Queen Mary he published a Pastoral — The Mourning 
Muse of Alexis. Alexis and Menalcas sing alternately in the orthodox way. 
The Queen is called Pastor A. 

"I mourn Pastor A dead, let Albion mourn. 
And sable clouds her chalky chffs adorn," 

says Alexis. Among other phenomena, we learn that — 

"With their sharp nails themselves the Satyrs wound. 
And tug their shaggy beards, and bite with grief the ground" — 

(a degree of sensibility not always found in the Satyrs of that period) .... It 
continues — 

"Lord of these woods and wide extended plains, 
Stretch'd on the ground and close to earth his face 
Scalding with tears the already faded grass. 

To dust must all that Heavenly beauty come ? 
And must Pastora molder in the tomb ? 
Ah Death ! more fierce and unrelenting far 
Than wildest wolves or savage tigers are ! 
With lambs and sheep their hungers are appeased, 
But ravenous Death the shepherdess has seized." 

This statement that a wolf eats but a sheep, whilst Death eats a shepherdess — 
that figure of the " Great Shepherd " lying speechless on his stomach, in a state 
of despair which neither winds nor floods nor air can exhibit — are to be re mem- 



62 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

We have seen in Swift a humorous philosopher, whose 
truth frightens one, and whose laughter makes one melan- 

bered in poetry surely ; and this style was admired in its time by the admirers 
of the great Congreve ! 

In the Tears of Amaryllis for Amyntas (the young Lord Blandford, the great 
Duke of Marlborough's only son), Amaryllis represents Sarah Duchess! 

The tigers and wolves, nature and motion, rivers and echoes, come into work 
here again. At the sight of her grief — 

"Tigers and wolves their wonted rage forego. 
And dumb distress and new compassion show. 
Nature herself attentive silence kept. 
And motion seemed suspended while she wept I" 

And Pope dedicated the Iliad to the author of these lines — and Dryden wrote 
to him in his great hand : — 

"Time, place, and action may with pains be wrought, 
But Genius must be born and never can be taught. 
This is your portion, this your native store ; 
Heaven, that but once was prodigal before. 
To Shakespeare gave as much, she could not give him more. 

Maintain your Post : that's all the fame you need. 
For 'tis impossible you should proceed ; 
Already I am worn with cares and age, 
And just abandoning th' ungrateful stage: 
Unprofitably kept at Heaven's expense, 
I live a Rent-charge upon Providence : 
But you, whom every Muse and Grace adorn, 
Whom I foresee to better fortune born. 
Be kind to my remains, and oh ! defend 
Against your Judgment your departed Friend ! 
Let not the insulting Foe my Fame pursue ; 
But shade those Lawrels which descend to You : 
And take for Tribute what these Lines express; 
You merit more, nor could my Love do less." 

This is a very different manner of welcome to that of our own day. In Shad- 
well, Higgons, Congreve, and the comic authors of their time, when gentlemen 
meet they fall into each other's arms, with "Jack, Jack, I must buss thee;" 
or, "Fore George, Harry, I must kiss thee, lad." And in a similar manner 
the poets saluted their brethren. Literary gentlemen do not kiss now ; I wonder 
if they love each other better? 

Steele calls Congreve "Great Sir" and "Great Author"; says "Well-dressed 
barbarians knew his awful name," and addresses him as if he were a prince; 
and speaks of Fastora as one of the most famous tragic compositions. 



CONGREVE AND ADDISON 63 

choly. We have had in Congreve a humorous observer of 
another school, to whom the world seems to have no morals 
at all, and whose ghastly doctrine seems to be that we should 
eat, drink, and be merry when we can, and go to the deuce 
(if there be a deuce) when the time comes. We come now to 5 
a humor that flows from quite a different heart and spirit — 
a wit that makes us laugh and leaves us good and happy; 
to one of the kindest benefactors that society has ever had ; 
and I believe you have divined already that I am about to 
mention Addison's honored name. 10 

From reading over his writings, and the biographies which 
we have of him, amongst which the famous article in the 
Edinburgh Review* may be cited as a magnificent statue of 
the great writer and moralist of the last age, raised by the 
love and the marvelous skill and genius of one of the most 15 
illustrious artists of our own : looking at that calm fair face, 
and clear countenance — those chiselled features pure and 
cold, I can't but fancy that this great man — in this respect, 
like him of whom we spoke in the last lecture — was also 
one of the lonely ones of the world. Such men have very few 20 
equals, and they don't herd with those. It is in the nature of 
such lords of intellect to be solitary — they are in the world, 
but not of it ; and our minor struggles, brawls, successes, pass 
under them. 

* "To Addison himself we are bound by a sentiment as much like affection 
as any sentiment can be which is inspired by one who has been sleeping a hundred 
and twenty years in Westminster Abbey. . . . After full inquiry and impartial . 
reflection we have long been convinced that he deserved as much love and esteem 
as can justly be claimed by any of our infirm and erring race." ■ — Macaulay. 

"Many who praise virtue do no more than praise it. Yet it is reasonable 
to believe that Addison's profession and practice were at no great variance; 
since, amidst that storm of faction in which most of his life was passed, though 
his station made him conspicuous, and his activity made him formidable, the 
character given him by his friends was never contradicted by his enemies. Of 
those with whom interest or opinion united him, he had not only the esteem 
but the kindness; and of others, whom the violence of opposition drove against 
him, though he might lose the love, he retained the reverence." — Johnson. 



64 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

Kind, just, serene, impartial, his fortitude not tried beyond 
easy endurance, his affections not much used, for his books 
were his family, and his society was in public; admirably 
wiser, wittier, calmer, and more instructed than almost every 
5 man with whom he met, how could Addison suffer, desire, 
admire, feel much? I may expect a child to admire me for 
being taller or writing more cleverly than she ; but how can I 
ask my superior to say that I am a wonder when he knows 
better than I ? In Addison's days you could scarcely show 

lo him a literary performance, a sermon, or a poem, or a piece 
of literary criticism, but he felt he could do better. His 
justice must have made him indifferent. He didn't praise, 
because he measured his compeers by a higher standard than 
common people have.* How was he who was so tall to look 

15 up to any but the loftiest genius ? He must have stooped to 
put himself on a level with most men. By that profusion of 
graciousness and smiles with which ^ Goethe or Scott, for 
instance, greeted almost every literary beginner, every small 
literary adventurer who came to his court and went away 

20 charrried from the great king's audience, and cuddling to his 
heart the compliment which his literary majesty had paid 
him — each of the two good-natured potentates of letters 
brought their star and ribbon into discredit. Everybody had 
his majesty's orders. Everybody had his majesty's cheap 

25 portrait, on a box surrounded by diamonds worth twopence 
apiece. A very great and just and wise man ought not to 
praise indiscriminately, but give his idea of the truth. Addi- 
son praises the ingenious Mr. Pinkethman : Addison praises 
the ingenious Mr. Doggett, the actor, whose benefit is coming 

30 off that night : Addison praises Don Saltero : Addison praises 

* "Addison was perfect good company with intimates, and had something 
more charming in his conversation than I ever knew in any other man ; but 
with any mixture of strangers, and sometimes only with one, he seemed to 
preserve his dignity much, with a stiff sort of silence." — Pope. Spence's 
Anecdotes. 



CONGREVE AND ADDISON 65 

Milton with all his heart, bends his knee and frankly pays 
homage to that imperial genius.* But between those degrees 
of his men his praise is very scanty. I don't think the great 
Mr. Addison liked young Mr. Pope, the Papist, much; I 
don't think he abused him. But when Mr. Addison's mens 
abused Mr. Pope, I don't think Addison took his pipe out of 
his mouth to contradict them.f 

Addison's father was a clergyman of good repute in Wilt- 
shire, and rose in the Church. J His famous son never lost 
his clerical training and scholastic gravity, and was called "a, 10 
parson in a tye-wig"§ in London afterwards at a time when 

* "Milton's chief talent, and indeed his distinguishing excellence, lies in 
the sublimity of his thoughts. There are others of the moderns, who rival 
him in every other part of poetry; but in the greatness of his sentiments he 
triumphs over all the poets, both modern and ancient, Homer only excepted. 
It is impossible for the imagination of man to distend itself with greater ideas 
than those which he has laid together in his first, second, and sixth books." — 
Spectator, No. 279. 

"If I were to name a poet that is a perfect master in all these arts of working 
on the imagination, I think Milton may pass for one." — Ibid. No. 417. 

These famous papers appeared in each Saturday's Spectator, from January 
igth to May 3d, 1712. Besides his services to Milton, we may place those he 
did to Sacred Music. 

t "Addison was very kind to me at first, but my bitter enemy afterwards." 

— Pope. Spence's Anecdotes. 

"'Leave him as soon as you can,' said Addison to me, speaking of Pope; 
'he will certainly play you some deviUsh trick else : he has an appetite to satire. '" 

— Lady Wortley Montagu. Spencers Anecdotes. 

X Lancelot Addison, his father, was the son of another Lancelot Addison, 
a clergyman in Westmoreland. He became Dean of Lichfield and Archdeacon 
of Coventry. 

§ "The remark of Mandeville, who, when he had passed an evening in his 
company, declared that he was 'a parson in a tye-wig,' can detract little from 
his character. He was always reserved to strangers, and was not incited to 
uncommon freedom by a character like that of Mandeville." — Johnson. Lives 
of the Poets. (Mandeville was the author of the famous Fahle of the Bees.) 

"Old Jacob Tonson did not like Mr. Addison: he had a quarrel with him, 
and, after his quitting the secretaryship, used frequently to say of him — ' One 
day or other you'll see that man a bishop — I'm sure he looks that way ; and 
indeed I ever thought him a priest in his heart.' " — Pope. Spence's Anecdotes. 

"Mr. Addison stayed above a year at Blois. He would rise as early as be- 



66 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

tiewigs were only worn by the laity, and the fathers of the- 
ology did not think it decent to appear except in a full bot- 
tom. Having been at school at Salisbury, and the Charter- 
house, in 1687, when he was fifteen years old, he went to 

5 Queen's College, Oxford, where he speedily began to distin- 
guish himself by the making of Latin verses. The beautiful 
and fanciful poem of "The Pygmies and the Cranes" is still 
read by lovers of that sort of exercise ; and verses are extant 
in honor of King William, by which it appears that it was the 

10 loyal youth's custom to toast that sovereign in bumpers of 
purple Lyaeus: many more works are in the Collection, 
including one on the Peace of Ryswick, in 1697, which was so 
good that Montague got him a pension of £300 a year, on 
which Addison set out on his travels. 

15 During his ten years at Oxford, Addison had deeply im- 
bued himself with the Latin poetical Hterature, and had these 
poets at his fingers' ends when he travelled in Italy.* His 
patron went out of office, and his pension was unpaid : and 
hearing that this great scholar, now eminent and known to the 

2onterati of Europe (the great Boileau,t upon perusal of Mr. 
Addison's elegant hexameters, was first made aware that 

. England was not altogether a barbarous nation) — hearing 
that the celebrated Mr. Addison, of Oxford, proposed to travel 
as governor to a young gentleman on the grand tour, the 

tween two and three in the height of summer, and lie abed till between eleven 
and twelve in the depth of winter. He was untalkative whilst here, and often 
thoughtful: sometimes so lost in thought that I have come into his room and 
stayed five minutes there before he has known anything of it. He had his 
masters generally at supper with him ; kept very little company besides ; and 
had no amour that I know of ; and I think I should have known it if he had had 
any." — Abbe Philippe.\ux of Blois. Spence's Anecdotes. 

* "His knowledge of the Latin poets, from Lucretius and Catullus down to 
Claudian and Prudentius, was singularly exact and profound." — Macaulay. 

t " Our country owes it to him, that the famous Monsieur Boileau first 
conceived an opinion of the English genius for poetry, by perusing the present 
he made him of the Muscb Anglicance." Tickell. Preface to Addison's Works. 



CONGREVE AND ADDISON 67 

great Duke of Somerset proposed to Mr. Addison to accom- 
pany his son, Lord Hertford. 

Mr. Addison was delighted to be of use to his Grace, and 
his Lordship his Grace's son, and expressed himself ready to 
set forth. 5 

His Grace the Duke of Somerset now announced to one of 
the most famous scholars of Oxford and Europe that it was his 
gracious intention to allow my Lord Hertford's tutor one hun- 
dred guineas per annum. Mr. Addison wrote back that his 
services were his Grace's, but he by no means found his 10 
account in the recompense for them. The negotiation was 
broken off. They parted with a profusion of congees on one 
side and the other.* 

■ Addison remained abroad for some time, living in the best 
society of Europe. How could he do otherwise ? He must 15 
have been one of the finest gentlemen the world ever saw: 
at all moments of life serene and courteous, cheerful and calm, f 
He could scarcely ever have had a degrading thought. He 
might have omitted a virtue or two, or many, but could not 
have committed many faults for which he need blush or turn 20 
pale. When warmed into confidence, his conversation ap- 
pears to have been so delightful that the greatest wits sat rapt 
and charmed to listen to him. No man bore poverty and 
narrow fortune with a more lofty cheerfulness. His letters 
to his friends at this period of his life, when he had lost his 25 
Government pension and given up his college chances, 
are full of courage and a gay confidence and philosophy : and 

* This proposal was made to Addison when he was in Holland, on the return 
from his travels. He was recommended to the Duke by the bookseller, Tonson, 
for whom he had undertaken a translatioa. of Herodotus. He had as yet pub- 
lished nothing separately, though he was well known in Oxford, and to some of 
the Whig nobiUty. 

t "It was my fate to be much with the wits; my father was acquainted 
with all of them. Addison was the best company in the world. I never knew 
anybody that had so much wit as Congreve." — Lady Wortley Montagu. 
Spencers Anecdotes. 



68 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

they are none the worse in my eyes, and I hope not in those 
of his last and greatest biographer (though Mr. Macaulay is 
bound to own and lament a certain weakness for wine, which 
the great and good Joseph Addison notoriously possessed, 
5 in common with countless gentlemen of his time), because 
some of the letters are written when his honest hand was 
shaking a little in the morning after libations to purple 
Lyaeus overnight. He w^as fond of drinking the healths of 
his friends: he writes to Wyche,* of Hamburg, gratefully 
I o remembering Wyche's "hoc." ''I have been drinking your 
health to-day with Sir Richard Shirley," he writes to Bathurst. 
''I have lately had the honor to meet my Lord Effingham at 
Amsterdam, where we have drunk Mr. Wood's health a hun- 
dred times in excellent champagne," he writes again. Swift f- 

* Mr. Addison to Mr. Wyche 

"Dear Sir, — My hand at present begins to grow steady enough for a letter, 
so the properest use I can put it to is to thank ye honest gentleman that set it 
a shaking. I have had this morning a desperate design in my head to attack 
you in verse, which I should certainly have done could I have found out a rhyme 
to rummer. But though you have escaped for ye present, you are not yet out 
of danger, if I can a little recover my talent at crambo. I am sure, in whatever 
way I write to you, it will be impossible for me to express ye deep sense I have 
of ye many favors you have lately shown me. I shall only tell you that Ham- 
bourg has been the pleasantest stage I have met with in my travails. If any 
of my friends wonder at me for living so long in that place, I dare say it will be 
thought a very good excuse when I tell him Mr. Wyche was there. As your com- 
pany made our stay at Hambourg agreeable, your wine has given us all ye satis- 
faction that we have found in our journey through Westphalia. If drinking 
your health will do you any good, you may expect to be as long-lived as Methu- 
selah, or, to use a more famiUar instance, as ye oldest hoc in ye cellar. I hope ye 
two pair of legs that was left a swelling behind us are by this time come to their 
shapes again. I can't forbear troubling you with my hearty respects to ye 
owners of them, and desiring you to believe me always, "Dear Sir, 

"Yours," &c. 

"To Mr. Wyche, His Majesty's Resident at 
"Hambourg, May 1703" 

— From the Life of Addison, by Miss Aikin. Vol. i. p. 146. 

t It is pleasing to remember that the relation between Swift and Addison 
was, on the whole, satisfactory from first to last. The value of Swift's testi- 



CONGREVE AND ADDISON 69 

describes him over his cups, when Joseph yielded to a tempta- 
tion which Jonathan resisted. Joseph was of a cold nature, 
and needed perhaps the fire of wine to warm his blood. If he 
was a parson, he wore a tiewig, recollect. A better ,and more 
Christian man scarcely ever breathed than Joseph Addison. 5 
If he had not that little weakness for wine — why, we could 
scarcely have found a fault with him, and could not have 
liked him as we do.* 

At thirty-three years of age, this most distinguished wit, 
scholar, and gentleman was without a profession and an in- 10 
come. His book of ''Travels" had failed : his ''Dialogues on 
Medals" f had had no particular succcess : his Latin verses, 

mony, when nothing personal inflamed his vision or warped his judgment, can 
be doubted by nobody. 

"Sept. 10, 1710. — I sat till ten in the evening with Addison and Steele. 

"11. — Mr. Addison and I dined together at his lodgings, and I sat with him 
part of this evening. 

"18. — To-day I dined with Mr. Stratford at Mr. Addison's retirement near 
Chelsea. ... I v.dll get what good offices I can from Mr. Addison. 

"27. — To-day all our company dined at Will Frankland's, with Steele and 
Addison, too. 

" 29. — I dined with Mr. Addison," &c. — Journal to Stella. 

Addison inscribed a presentation copy of his Travels "To Dr. Jonathan Swift, 
the most agreeable companion, the truest friend, and the greatest genius of his 
age." — (Scott. From the information of Mr. Theophilus Swift.) 

"Mr. Addison, who goes over first secretary, is a most excellent person; 
and being my most intimate friend, I shall use all my credit to set him right in 
his notions of persons and things." — Letters. 

"I examine my heart, and can find no other reason why I write to you now, 
besides that great love and esteem I have always had for you. I have nothing 
to ask you either for my friend or for myself." — Swipt to Addison (1717). 
Scott's Swift. Vol. xix. p. 274. 

Political differences only dulled for a while their friendly communications. 
Time renewed them : and Tickell enjoyed Swift's friendship as a legacy from 
the man with whose memory his is so honorably connected. 

* "Addison usually studied all the morning; then met his party at Button's; 
dined there, and stayed five or six hours, and sometimes far into the night. I 
was of the company for about a year, but found it too much for me : it hurt my 
health, and so I quitted it." — Pope. Spence's Anecdotes. 

t The Dialogues on Medals only appeared posthumously. The Travels ap- 
peared in 1705, i.e. after the Campaign. It is announced in the Diverting Post 



70 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

even though reported the best since Virgil, or Statins at any 
rate, had not brought him a Government place, and Addison 
was living up three shabby pair of stairs in the Haymarket 
(in a poverty over which old Samuel Johnson rather chuckles), 
5 when in these shabby rooms an emissary from Government 
and Fortune came and found him.* A poem was wanted 
about the Duke of Marlborough's victory of Blenheim. 
Would Mr. Addison write one ? Mr. Boyle, afterwards Lord 
Carleton, took back the reply to the Lord Treasurer Godolphin, 
lothat Mr. Addison would. When the poem had reached a 
certain stage, it was carried to Godolphin; and the last 
lines which he read were these : — 

"But, O my Muse ! what numbers wilt thou find 

To sing the furious troops in battle join'd ? 
15 Methinks I hear the drum's tumultuous sound 

The victor's shouts and dying groans confound ; 

The dreadful burst of cannon rend the skies, 

And all the thunder of the battle rise. 

'Twas then great Marlborough's mighty soul was proved, 
20 That, in the shock of charging hosts unmoved, 

Amidst confusion, horror, and despair. 

Examined all the dreadful scenes of war : 

In peaceful thought the field of death surveyed, 

To fainting squadrons sent the timely aid, 
25 Inspired repulsed battalions to engage, 

And taught the doubtful battle where to rage. 

So when an angel, by divine command. 

With rising tempests shakes a guilty land 

(Such as of late o'er pale Britannia passed), 
30 Calm and serene he drives the furious blast ; 

And, pleased the Almighty's orders to perform, 

Rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm." 

of December 2-9, 1704, that Mr. Addison's "long-expected poem " on the Cam- 
paign is to be published "next week." 

* "When he returned to England (in 1702), with a meanness of appearance 
which gave testimony of the difficulties to which he had been reduced, he found 
his old patrons out of power, and was, therefore, for a time, at full leisure for 
the cultivation of his mind." — Johnson. Lives of the Poets. 



CONGREVE AND ADDISON 71 

Addison left off at a good moment. That simile was pro- 
nounced to be of the greatest ever produced in poetry. That 
angel, that good angel, flew off with Mr. Addison, and 
landed him in the place of Commissioner of Appeals — vice 
Mr. Locke providentially promoted. In the following years 
Mr. Addison went to Hanover with Lord Halifax, and the 
year after was made Undersecretary of State. O angel 
visits ! you come ''few and far between" to literary gentle- 
men's lodgings ! Your wings seldom quiver at second floor 
windows now ! * 10 

You laugh ? You think it is in the power of few writers 
nowadays to call up such an angel? Well, perhaps not; 
but permit us to comfort ourselves by pointing out that 
there are in the poem of the "Campaign" some as bad lines 
as heart can desire ; and to hint that Mr. Addison did very 15 
wisely in not going further with my Lord Godolphin than that 
angelical simile. Do allow me, just for a little harmless mis- 
chief, to read you some of the lines which follow. Here is the 
interview between the Duke and the King of the Romans 
after the battle : — 20 

"Austria's young monarch, whose imperial sway 
Scepters and thrones are destined to obey, 
Whose boasted ancestry so high extends 
That in the Pagan Gods his lineage ends, 

* [The famous story in the text, which has been generally accepted, is prob- 
ably inaccurate. It was first told in 1732 by Addison's cousin, Eustace Budgell, 
then ruined and half sane, who was trying to puff himself by professing familiar 
knowledge of his eminent relation. The circumstantiality of the story is sus- 
picious; Godolphin was the last man to give preferment to a poet in the way 
described, and Addison was not in the position implied. He had strong claims 
upon Halifax, his original patron. When Halifax lost office, Addison's pension 
had ceased. Halifax was now being courted by Godolphin, and could make an 
effective application on iDehalf of his client. This, and not the simile of the angel, 
was probably at the bottom of Addison's preferment. It has lately appeared, 
from the publication of Hearne's diaries by the Oxford Historical Society, that, 
in December 1705, it was reported that Addison was to marry the Countess of 
Warwick. The marriage was delayed for eleven years ; but it is clear that Addi- 
son had powerful friends at this time.] 



72 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

Comes from afar, in gratitude to own 
The great supporter of his father's throne. 
What tides of glory to his bosom ran 
Clasped in th' embraces of the godlike man ! 
5 How were his eyes with pleasing wonder fixt, 

To see such fire with so much sweetness mixt ! 
Such easy greatness, such a graceful port, 
So turned and finished for the camp or court ! " 

How many fourth-form boys at Mr. Addison's school of 
lo Charterhouse could write as well as that now? The "Cam- 
paign" has blunders, triumphant as it was; and weak points 
like all campaigns.* 

In the year 17 13 "Cato" came out. Swift has left a de- 
scription of the first night of the performance. All the laurels 
15 of Europe were scarcely sufficient for the author of this pro- 
digious poem.f Laudations of Whig and Tory chiefs, popu- 
lar ovations, complimentary garlands from literary men, 
translations in all languages, delight and homage from all — 
save from John Dennis in a minority of one. Mr. Addison 

*"Mr. Addison wrote very fluently; but he was sometimes very slow and 
scrupulous in correcting. He would show his verses to several friends; and 
would alter almost everything that any of them hinted at as wrong. He seemed 
to be too diffident of himself ; and too much concerned about his character as a 
poet; or (as he worded it) too solicitous for that kind of praise which, God 
knows, is but a very little matter after all !" — Pope. Spence's Anecdotes. 

t "As to poetical affairs," says Pope in 17 13, "I am content at present to 
be a bare looker-on. . . . Cato was not so much the wonder of Rome in his 
days, as he is of Britain in ours; and though all the foolish industry possible 
has been used to make it thought a party play, yet what the author once said 
of another may the most properly in the world be applied to him on this occa- 
sion : — 

"'Envy itself is dumb — in wonder lost ; 

And factions strive who shall applaud him most.' 

"The numerous and violent claps of the Whig party on the one side of the 
theater were echoed back by the Tories on the other ; while the author sweated 
behind the scenes with concern to find their applause proceeding more from the 
hand than the head. ... I believe you have heard that, after all the applauses 
of the opposite faction, my Lord Bolingbroke sent for Booth, who played Cato, 
into the box, and presented him with fifty guineas in acknowledgment (as he 



CONGREVE AND ADDISON 73 

was called the ''great Mr. Addison" after this. The Coffee- 
house Senate saluted him Divus : it was heresy to question 
that decree. 

Meanwhile he was writing political papers and advancing in 
the political profession. He went Secretary to Ireland. He 5 
was appointed Secretary of State in 171 7. And letters of his 
are extant, bearing date some year or two before, and written 
to young Lord Warwick, in which he addresses him as " my 
dearest Lord," and asks affectionately about his studies, and 
writes very prettily about nightingales and bird's nests, 10 
which he has found at Fulham for his Lordship. Those 
nightingales were intended to warble in the ear of Lord War- 
wick's mamma. Addison married her Ladyship in 17 16; 
and died at Holland House three years after that splendid 
but dismal union.* 15 

expressed it) for defending the cause of liberty so well against a perpetual dic- 
tator." — Pope's Letters to Sir W. Trumbull. 

Cato ran for thirty -five nights without interruption. Pope wrote the Prologue, 
and Garth the Epilogue. 

It is worth noticing how many things in Cato keep their ground as habitual 
quotations ; e.g. — 

"... big with the fate 
Of Cato and of Rome." 

" 'Tis not in mortals to command success ; 
But we'll do more, Sempronius, we'll deserve it." 

"Blesses his stars, and thinks it luxury." 

"I think the Romans call it Stoicism." 

" My voice is still for war." 

"When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway, 
The post of honor is a private station." 



Not to mention 
And the eternal 



"The woman who deliberates is lost." 



"Plato, thou reasonest well," 

which avenges, perhaps, on the public their neglect of the play ! 

* "The lady was persuaded to marry him on terms much like those on 
which a Turkish princess is espoused — to whom the Sultan is reported to pro- 
nounce, 'Daughter, I give thee this man for thy slave.' The marriage, if 



74 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

But it is not for his reputation as the great author of " Cato " 
and the ''Campaign," or for his merits as Secretary of State, 
or for his rank and high distinction as my Lady Warwick's 
husband, or for his eminence as an Examiner of pohtical ques- 
5 tions on the Whig side, or a Guardian of British Uberties, 
that we admire Joseph Addison. It is as a Tatler of small 
talk and a Spectator of mankind, that we cherish and love 
him, and owe as much pleasure to him as to any human being 
that ever wrote. He came in that artificial age, and began to 
lo speak with his noble, natural voice. He came, the gentle 
satirist who hit no unfair blow; the kind judge who casti- 
gated only in smiling. While Swift went about, hanging and 

uncontradicted report can be credited, made no addition to his happiness; it 
neither found them, nor made them, equal. . . . Rowe's ballad of 'The De- 
spairing Shepherd' is said to have been written, either before or after mar- 
riage, upon this memorable pair." — Dr. Johnson. 

"I received the news of Mr. Addison's being declared Secretary of State 
with the less surprise, in that I knew that post was almost offered to him before. 
At that time he declined it, and I really believe that he would have done well 
to have declined it now. Such a post as that, and such a wife as the Count- 
ess, do not seem to be, in prudence, eligible for a man that is asthmatic, and 
we may see the day when he will be heartily glad to resign them both." — 
Lady Wortley Montagu to Pope : Works, Lord Wharncliffe's edit. vol. ii. p. iii. 
The issue of this marriage was a daughter, Charlotte Addison, who inherited, 
on her mother's death, the estate of Bilton, near Rugby, which her father had 
purchased. She was of weak intellect, and died, unmarried, at an advanced age. 
Rowe appears to have been faithful to Addison during his courtship, for his 
Collection contains "Stanzas to Lady Warwick, on Mr. Addison's going to 
Ireland," in which her Ladyship is callg4 "Chloe," and Joseph Addison "Lyci- 
das" ; besides the ballad mentioned by the Doctor, and which is entitled " Colin's 
Complaint." But not even the interest attached to the name of Addison could 
induce the reader to peruse this composition, though one stanza may serve as a 
specimen : — 

"What though I have skill to complain — 

Though the Muses my temples have crowned ; 

What though, when they hear my soft strain, 

The virgins sit weeping around. 

" Ah, Colin ! thy hopes are in vain ; 
Thy pipe and thy laurel resign ; 
Thy false one inclines to a swain 
Whose music is sweeter than thine." 



CONGREVE AND ADDISON 75 

ruthless — a literary Jeffreys — in Addison's kind court only 
minor cases were tried; only peccadilloes and small sins 
against society : only a dangerous libertinism in tuckers and 
hoops ; * or a nuisance in the abuse of beaux' canes and snuff- 
boxes. It may be a lady is tried for breaking the peace of our 5 
sovereign lady Queen Anne, and ogling too dangerously from 

* One of the most humorous of these is the paper on Hoops, which, the 
Spectator tells us, particularly pleased his friend Sir Roger : — 

"Mr. Spectator, — You have diverted the town almost a whole month at 
the expense of the country ; it is now high time that you should give the country 
their revenge. Since your withdrawing from this place, the fair sex are run 
into great extravagances. Their petticoats, which began to heave and swell 
before you left us, are now blown up into a most enormous concave, and rise 
every day more and more; in short, sir, since our women know themselves to 
be out of the eye of the Spectator, they will be kept within no compass. You 
praised them a little too soon, for the modesty of their headdresses ; for as the 
humor of a sick person is often driven out of one limb into another, their super- 
fluity of ornaments, instead of being entirely banished, seems only fallen from 
their heads upon their lower parts. What they have lost in height they make 
up in breadth, and, contrary to all rules of architecture, widen the foundations 
at the same time that they shorten the superstructure. 

"The women give out, in defense of these wide bottoms, that they are airy 
and very proper for the season ; but this I look upon to be only a pretense and 
a piece of art, for it is well known we have not had a more moderate summer 
these many years, so that it is certain the heat they complain of cannot be 
in the weather; besides I would fain ask these tender-constituted ladies, why 
they should require more cooling than their mothers before them? 

"I find several speculative persons are of opinion that our sex has of late 
years been very saucy, and that the hoop-petticoat is made use of to keep us 
at a distance. It is most certain that a woman's honor cannot be better in- 
trenched than after this manner, in circle within circle, amidst such a variety 
of outworks of lines and circumvallation. A female who is thus invested in 
whalebone is sufficiently secured against the approaches of an ill-bred fellow, 
who might as well think of Sir George Etherege's way of making love in a tub 
as in the midst of so many hoops. 

"Among these various conjectures, there are men of superstitious tempers 
who look upon the hoop-petticoat as a kind of prodigy. Some will have it that 
it portends the downfall of the Frejich king, and observe, that the farthingale 
appeared in England a little before the ruin of the Spanish monarchy. Others 
are of opinion that it foretells battle and bloodshed, and believe it of the same 
prognostication as the tail of a blazing star. For my part, I am apt to think it 
is a sign that multitudes are coming into the world rather than going out of 
it," &c. Sac — Spectator, No. 127. 



76 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

the side box ; or a Templar for beating the watch, or breaking 
Priscian's head ; or a citizen's wife for caring too much for the 
puppet show, and too little for her husband and children : 
every one of the little sinners brought before him is amusing, 

5 and he dismisses each with the pleasantest penalties and the 
most charming words of admonition. 

Addison wrote his papers as gayly as if he was going out for 
a holiday. When Steele's Tatler first began his prattle, Addi- 
son, then in Ireland, caught at his friend's notion, poured in 

lo paper after paper, and contributed the stores of his mind, the 
sweet fruits of his reading, the delightful gleanings of his daily 
observation, with a wonderful profusion, and as it seemed an 
almost endless fecundity. He was six-and-thirty years old: 
full and ripe. He had not worked crop after crop from his brain, 

15 manuring hastily, sub-soiling indifferently, cutting and sowing 
and cutting again, like other luckless cultivators of letters. He 
had not done much as yet : a few Latin poems — graceful pro- 

- lusions ; a polite book of travels ; a dissertation on medals, 
not very deep, four acts of a tragedy, a great classical exercise ; 

20 and the ''Campaign," a large prize poem that won an enor- 
mous prize. But with his friend's discovery of the "Tatler," 
Addison's calling was found, and the most delightful talker 
in the world began to speak. He does not go very deep: 
let gentlem.en of a profound genius, critics accustomed to the 

25 plunge of the bathos, console themselves by thinking that he 
couldn't go very deep. There are no traces of suffering in his 
writing. He was so good, so honest, so healthy, so cheerfully 
selfish, if I must use the word. There is no deep sentiment. 
I doubt, until after his marriage, perhaps, whether he ever lost 

30 his night's rest or his day's tranquillity about any woman in 
his life ; * whereas poor Dick Steele had capacity enough to 

* "Mr. Addison has not had one epithalamium that I can hear of, and must 
even be reduced, like a poorer and a better poet, Spenser, to make his own." 
— Pope's Letters. 



CONGREVE AND ADDISON 77 

melt, and to languish, and to sigh, and to cry his honest old 
eyes out, for a dozen. His writings do not show insight into 
or reverence for the love of women, which I take to be, one 
the consequence of the other. He walks about the world 
watching their pretty humors, fashions, follies, flirtations, 5 
rivalries : and noting them with the most charming archness. 
He sees them in public, in the theater or the assembly, or the 
puppet show ; or at the toyshop higgling for gloves and lace ; 
or at the auction, battling together over a blue porcelain 
dragon, or a darling monster in Japan ; or at church eyeing the 10 
width of their rival's hoops, or the breadth of their laces, as 
they sweep down the aisles. Or he looks out of his window 
at the "Garter" in Saint James's Street, at Ardelia's coach, as 
she blazes to the drawing-room with her coronet and six 
footmen; and remembering that her father was a Turkey 15 
merchant in the City, calculates how many sponges went to 
purchase her earring, and how many drums of figs to build her 
coach box ; or he demurely watches behind a tree in Spring 
Garden as Saccharissa (whom he knows under her mask) 
trips out of her chair to the alley where Sir FopHng is waiting. 20 
He sees only the public life of women. Addison was .one of 
the most resolute club men of his day. He passed many hours 
daily in those haunts. Besides drinking — which, alas! is 
past praying for — you must know it, he owned, too, ladies, 
that he indulged in that odious practice of smoking. Poor 25 
fellow ! He was a man's man, remember. The only woman 
he did know, he didn't write about. I take it there would not 
have been much humor in that story. 

He likes to go and sit in the smoking room at the " Grecian," 
or the "Devil" ; to pace 'Change and the Mall* — to mingle 30 

* "I have observed that a reader seldom peruses a book with pleasure till 
he knows whether the writer of it be a black or a fair man, of a mild or a choleric 
disposition, married or a bachelor; with other particulars of a like nature, 
that conduce very much to the right understanding of an author. To gratify 



78 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

in that great club of the world — sitting alone in it somehow : 
having good-will and kindness for every single man and 

this curiosity, which is so natural to a reader, I design this paper and my next 
as prefatory discourses to my following writings; and shall give some account 
in them of the persons that are engaged in this work. As the chief trouble of 
compihng, digesting, and correcting will fall to my share, I must do myself the 
justice to open the work with my own history. . . . There runs a story in 
the family, that when my mother was gone with child of me about three months, 
she dreamt that she was brought to bed of a judge. Whether this might pro- 
ceed from a lawsuit which was then depending in the family, or my father's 
being a justice of the peace, I cannot determine; for I am not so vain as to 
think it presaged any dignity that I should arrive at in my future life, though 
that was the interpretation which the neighborhood put upon it. The gravity 
of my behavior at my very first appearance in the world, and all the time 
that I sucked, seemed to favor my mother's dream ; for, as she has often told 
me, I threw away my rattle before I was two months old, and would not make 
use of my coral till they had taken away the bells from it. 

"As for the rest of my infancy, there being nothing in it remarkable, I shall 
pass it over in silence. I find that during my nonage I had the reputation of 
a very sullen youth, but was always the favorite of my schoolmaster, who 
used to say that my parts were solid and would wear well. I had not been long 
at the University before I distinguished myself by a most profound silence; 
for during the space of eight years, excepting in the public exercises of the 
college, I scarce uttered the quantity of a hundred words ; and, indeed, I do not 
remember that I ever spoke three sentences together in my whole Hfe. . . . 

"I have passed my latter years in this city, where I am frequently seen in 
most public places, though there are not more than half-a-dozen of my select 
friends that know me. . . . There is no place of general resort wherein I do 
not often make my appearance; sometimes I am seen thrusting my head into 
a round of politicians at 'Will's,' and listening with great attention to the nar- 
ratives that are made in these httle circular audiences. Sometimes I smoke a 
pipe at 'Child's,' and whilst I seem attentive to nothing but the Postman, over- 
hear the conversation of every table in the room. I appear on Tuesday night 
at * St. James's Coffeehouse ' ; and sometimes join the little committee of politics 
in the inner room, as one who comes to hear and improve. My face is likewise 
very well known at the 'Grecian,' the 'Cocoa-tree,' and in the theaters both of 
Drury Lane and the Haymarket. I have been taken for a merchant upon the 
Exchange for above these two years; and sometimes pass for a Jew in the 
assembly of stockjobbers at 'Jonathan's.' In short, wherever I see a cluster 
of people, I mix with them, though I never open my lips but in my own club. 

"Thus I live in the world rather as a 'Spectator,' of mankind than as one 
of the species; by which means I have made myself a speculative statesman, 
soldier, merchant, and artisan, without ever meddling in any practical part in 
life. I am very well versed in the theory of a husband or a father, and can 



CONGREVE AND ADDISON 79 

woman in it — having need of some habit and custom binding 
him to some few ; never doing any man a wrong (unless it be 
a wrong to hint a little doutt about a man's parts, and to 
damn him with faint praise) ; and so he looks on the world 
and plays with the ceaseless humors of all of us — laughs the 5 
kindest laugh — points our neighbor's foible or eccentricity 
out to us with the most good-natured smiling confidence; 
and then, turning over his shoulder, whispers our foibles to our 
neighbor. ,What would Sir Roger de Coverley be without 
his follies and his charming little brain-cracks ? * If the 10 
good knight did not call out to the people sleeping in church, 
and say "Amen" with such a delightful pomposity ; if he did 
not make a speech in the assize-court a propos de hottes, and 
merely to show his dignity to Mr. Spectator if if he did not 

discern the errors in the economy, business, and diversions of others, better 
than those who are engaged in them — as standers-by discover blots which are 
apt to escape those who are in the game. ... In short, I have acted, in all 
the parts of my life, as a looker-on, which is the character I intend to preserve 
in this paper." — Spectator, No. i. 

. * " So effectually, indeed, did he retort on vice the mockery which had re- 
cently been directed against virtue, that, since his time, the open violation of 
decency has always been considered, amongst us, the sure mark of a fool." — 
Macaiday. 

t "The Court was sat before Sir Roger came; but, notwithstanding all the 
justices had taken their places upon the bench, they made room for the old 
knight at the head of them ; who for his reputation in the country took occasion 
to whisper in the judge's ear that he was glad his Lordship had met with so much 
good weather in his circuit. I was listening to the proceedings of the Court 
with much attention, and infinitely pleased with that great appearance and 
solemnity which so properly accompanies such a public administration of our 
laws; when, after about an hour's sitting, I observed, to my great surprise, in 
the midst of a trial, that my friend Sir Roger was getting up to speak. I was in 
some pain for him, till I found he had acquitted himself of two or three sentences, 
with a look of much business and great intrepidity. 

"Upon his first rising, the Court was hushed, and a general whisper ran 
among the country people that Sir Roger was up. The speech he made was 
so little to the purpose, that I shall not trouble my readers with an account of it, 
and I believe was not so much designed by the knight himself to inform the 
Court as to give him a figure in my eyes, and to keep up his credit in the coun- 
try." — Spectator, No. 122. 



8o ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

mistake Madam Doll Tearsheet for a lady of quality in Temple 
Garden : if he were wiser than he is : if he had not his humor 
to salt his life, and were but a mere Enghsh gentleman and 
game preserver — of what worth were he to us ? We love 

5 him for his vanities as much as his virtues. What is ridicu- 
lous is delightful in him ; we are so fond of him because we 
laugh at him so. And out of that laughter, and out of that 
sweet weakness, and out of those harmless eccentricities and 
follies, and out of that touched brain, and out of that honest 

lo manhood and simplicity — we get a result of happiness, good- 
ness, tenderness, pity, piety; such as, if my audience will 
think their reading and hearing over, doctors and divines 
but seldom have the fortune to inspire. And why not ? Is 
the glory of Heaven to be sung only by gentlemen in black 

IS coats ? Must the truth be only expounded in gown and sur- 
plice, and out of those two vestments can nobody preach it ? 
Commend me to this dear preacher without orders — this 
parson in the tiewig. When this man looks from the world, 
whose weaknesses he describes so benevolently, up to the 

20 Heaven which shines over us all, I can hardly fancy a human 
face lighted up with a more serene rapture : a human intellect 
thrilling with a purer love and adoration than Joseph Addi- 
son's. Listen to him : from your childhood you have known 
the verses : but who can hear their sacred music without love 

25 and awe ? — 

" Soon as the evening shades prevail, 

The moon takes up the wondrous tale, 

And nightly to the Ustening earth 
30 Repeats the story of her birth ; 

Whilst all the stars that round her bum, 

And all the planets in their turn, 

Confirm the tidings as they roll, 

And spread the truth from pole to pole. 

What though, in solemn silence, all 
35 Move round the dark terrestrial ball ; 



CONGREVE AND ADDISON 8i 

What though no real voice nor sound 

Amid their radiant orbs be found ; 

In reason's ear they all rejoice, 

And utter forth a glorious voice, 

For ever singing as they shine, " 5 

The hand that made us is divine." 

It seems to me those verses shine like the stars. They shine 
out of a great deep calm. When he turns to Heaven, a Sab- 
bath comes over that man's mind : and his face lights up from 
it with a glory of thanks and prayer. His sense of religion 10 
stirs through his whole being. In the fields, in the town: 
looking at the birds in the trees : at the children in the streets : 
in the morning or in the moonlight : over his books in his own 
room: in a happy party at a country merrymaking or a 
town assembly, good- will and peace to God's creatures, and 15 
love and awe of Him who made them, fill his pure heart and 
shine from his kind face. If Swift's life was the most wretched, 
I think Addison's was one of the most enviable. A life pros- 
perous and beautiful — a calm death, — an immense fame 
and affection afterwards for his happy and spotless name.* 20 

* " Garth sent to Addison (of whom he had a very high opinion) on his 
deathbed, to ask him whether the Christian religion was true." — Dr. Young. 
Spence's Anecdotes. 

"I have always preferred cheerfulness to mirth. The latter I consider as 
an act, the former as an habit of the mind. Mirth is short and transient, cheer- 
fulness fixed and permanent. Those are often raised into the greatest trans- 
ports of mirth who are subject to the greatest depression of melancholy : on 
the contrary, cheerfulness, though it does not give the mind such an exquisite 
gladness, prevents us from falling into any depths of sorrow. Mirth is like a 
flash of lightning that breaks through a gloom of clouds, and glitters for a mo- 
ment ; cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight in the mind, and fills it with a 
steady and perpetual serenity." — Addison. Spectator, No. 381. 



STEELE 

What do we look for in studying the history of a past 
age ? Is it to learn the political transactions and characters 
of the leading public men ? is it to make ourselves acquainted 
with the life and being of the time ? If we set out with the 
5 former grave purpose, where is the truth, and who believes 
that he has it entire ? What character of what great man is 
known to you? You can but make guesses as to character 
more or less happy. In common life don't you often judge 
and misjudge a man's whole conduct, setting out from a wrong 

lo impression ? The tone of a voice, a word said in joke, or a 
trifle in behavior — the cut of his hair or the tie of his neck- 
cloth may disfigure him in your eyes, or poison your good 
opinion ; or at the end of years of intimacy it may be your clos- 
est friend says something, reveals something which had pre- 

15 viously been a secret, which alters all your views about him, 
and shows that he has been acting on quite a different motive 
to that which you fancied you knew. And if it is so with 
those you know, how much more with those you don't know ? 
Say, for example, that I want to understand the character of 

20 the Duke of Marlborough. I read Swift's history of the times 
in which he took a part ; the shrewdest of observers and ini- 
tiated, one would think, into the politics of the age — he 
hints to me that Marlborough was a coward, and even of 
doubtful military capacity : he speaks of Walpole as a con- 

25 temptible boor, and scarcely mentions, except to flout it, the 
great intrigue of the Queen's latter days, which was to have 
ended in bringing back the Pretender. Again, I read Marl- 

82 



STEELE 83 

borough's Life by a copious archdeacon, who has the command 
of immense papers, of sonorous language, of what is called the 
best information; and I get little or no insight into this 
secret motive which, I believe, influenced the whole of Marl- 
borough's career, which caused his turnings and windings, 5 
his opportune fidelity and treason, stopped his army almost 
at Paris gate, and landed him finally on the Hanoverian side 
— the winning side : I get, I say, no truth, or only a portion of 
it, in the narrative of either writer, and believe that Coxe's 
portrait, or Swift's portrait, is quite unlike the real Churchill. 10 
I take this as a single instance, prepared to be as skeptical 
about any other, and say to the Muse of History, "O venerable 
daughter of Mnemosyne, I doubt every single statement you 
ever made since your ladyship was a Muse ! For all your grave 
airs and high pretensions, you are not a whit more trustworthy 15 
than some of your lighter sisters on whom your partisans look 
down. You bid me listen to a general's oration to his sol- 
diers : Nonsense ! He no miore made it than Turpin made 
his dying speech at Newgate. You pronounce a panegyric 
on a hero : I doubt it, and say you flatter outrageously. You 20 
utter the condemnation of a loose character : I doubt it, and 
think you are prejudiced and take the side of the Dons. 
You offer me an autobiography : I doubt all autobiographies 
I ever read ; except those, perhaps, of Mr. Robinson Crusoe, 
Mariner, and writers of his class. These have no object in 25 
setting themselves right with the public or their own con- 
sciences ; these have no motive for concealment or half 
truths ; these call for no more confidence than I can cheer- 
fully give, and do not force me to tax my credulity or to 
fortify it by evidence. I take up a volume of Doctor Smollett, 30 
or a volume of the Spectator, and say the fiction carries a 
greater amount of truth in solution than the volume which pur- 
ports to be all true. Out of the fictitious book I get the ex- 
pression of the life of the time ; of the manners, of the move- 



84 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

ment, the dress, the pleasures, the laughter, the ridicules of 
society — the old times live again, and I travel in the old 
country of England. Can the heaviest historian do more for 
me?" 
5 As we read in these delightful volumes of the Tatler and 
Spectator the past age returns, the England of our ancestors 
is revivified. The Maypole rises in the Strand again in 
London ; the churches are thronged with daily worshipers ; 
the beaux are gathering in the coffeehouses ; the gentry are 

lo going to the Drawing-room ; the ladies are thronging to the 
toyshops : the chairmen are jostling in the streets ; the 
footmen are running with links before the chariots, or fighting 
round the theater doors. In the country I see the young 
Squire riding to Eton with his servants behind him, and Will 

15 Wimble, the friend of the family, to see him safe. To make 
that journey from the Squire's and back. Will is a week on 
horseback. The coach takes five days between London and 
Bath. The judges and the bar ride the circuit. If my Lady 
comes to town in her post-chariot, her people carry pistols to 

20 fire a salute on Captain Macheath if he should appear, and her 
couriers ride ahead to prepare apartments for her at the great 
caravanserais on the road ; Boniface receives her under the 
creaking sign of the ''Bell" or the "Ram," and he and his 
chamberlains bow her up the great stair to the state apart- 

25 ments, whilst her carriage rumbles into the courtyard, where 
the "Exeter Fly" is housed that performs the journey in 
eight days, God willing, having achieved its daily flight of 
twenty miles, and landed its passengers for supper and sleep. 
The curate is taking his pipe in the kitchen, where the Cap- 

30 tain's man — having hung up his master's half-pike — is at 
his bacon and eggs, bragging of Ramillies and Malplaquet to 
the townsfolk, who have their club in the chimney-corner. 
The Captain is ogling the chambermaid in the wooden gal- 
lery, or bribing her to know who is the pretty young mistress 



STEELE 85 

that has come in the coach. The pack horses are in the great 
stable, and the drivers and ostlers carousing in the tap. And 
in Mrs. Landlady's bar, over a glass of strong waters, sits a 
gentleman of military appearance, who travels with pistols, as 
all the rest of the world does, and has a rattling gray mare in the 5 
stables which will be saddled and away with its owner half 
an hour before the ''Fly" sets out on its last day's flight. 
And some five miles on the road, as the "Exeter Fly" comes 
jingling and creaking onwards, it will suddenly be brought 
to a halt by a gentleman on a gray mare, with a black vizard 10 
on his face, who thrusts a long pistol into the coach window, 
and bids the company to hand out their purses. . . . 
It must have been no small pleasure even to sit in the great 
kitchen in those days, and see the tide of humankind pass by. 
We arrive at places now, but we travel no more. Addison 15 
talks jocularly of a difference of manner and costume being 
quite perceivable at Staines, where there passed a young fel- 
low "with a very tolerable periwig," though, to be sure, his 
hat was out of fashion, and had a Ramillies cock. I would 
have liked to travel in those days (being of that class of trav- 20 
elers who are proverbially pretty easy coram latronihus) and 
have seen my friend with the gray mare and the black vizard. 
Alas ! there always came a day in the life of that warrior 
when it was the fashion to accompany him as he passed — 
without his black mask, and with a nosegay in his hand, ac- 25 
companied by halberdiers and attended by the sheriff, — in a 
carriage without springs, and a clergyman jolting beside him, . 
to a spot close by Cumberland Gate and the Marble Arch, 
where a stone still records that here Tyburn turnpike stood. 
What a change in a century ; in a few years ! Within a few 30 
yards of that gate the fields began : the fields of his exploits, 
behind the hedges of which he lurked and robbed. A great 
and wealthy city has grown over those meadows. Were a 
man brought to die there now, the windows would be closed 



86 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

and the inhabitants keep their houses in sickening horror. A 
hundred years back, people crowded to see that last act of a 
highwayman's life, and make jokes on it. Swift laughed at him, 
grimly advising him to provide a Holland shirt and white cap 
5 crowned with a crimson or black ribbon for his exit, to mount 
the cart cheerfully — shake hands with the hangman, and so 
— farewell. Gay wrote the most delightful ballads, and made 
merry over the same hero. Contrast these with the writings 
of our present humorists ! Compare those morals and ours — 

lo those manners and ours ! 

We can't tell — you would not bear to be told — the whole 
truth regarding those men and manners. You could no more 
suffer in a British drawing-room, under the reign of Queen 
Victoria, a fine gentleman or fine lady of Queen Anne's time, 

15 or hear what they heard and said, than you would receive 
an ancient Briton. It is as one reads about savages, that one 
contemplates the wild ways, the barbarous feasts, the terrific 
pastimes, of the men of pleasure of that age. We have our 
fine gentlemen, and our "fast men" ; permit me to give you 

20 an idea of one particularly fast nobleman of Queen Anne's 
days, whose biography has been preserved to us by the law 
reporters. 

In 1 69 1, when Steele was a boy at school, my Lord Mohun 
was tried by his peers for the murder of William Mountford, 

25 comedian. In ''Howell's State Trials," the reader will find 
not only an edifying account of this exceedingly fast nobleman, 
but of the times and manners of those days. My Lord's 
friend, a Captain Hill, smitten with the charms of the beauti- 
ful Mrs. Bracegirdle, and anxious to marry her at all hazards, 

30 determined to carry her off, and for this purpose hired a hack- 
ney coach with six horses, and a half-dozen of soldiers to aid 
him in the storm. The coach with a pair of horses (the four 
leaders being in waiting elsewhere) took its station opposite 
my Lord Craven's house in Drury Lane, by which door Mrs. 



STEELE 87 

Bracegirdle was to pass on her way from the theater. As she 
passed in company of her mamma and a friend, Mr. Page, the 
Captain seized her by the hand, the soldiers hustled Mr. Page 
and attacked him sword in hand, and Captain Hill and his 
noble friend endeavored to force Madam Bracegirdle into the 5 
coach. Mr. Page called for help : the population of Drury 
Lane rose : it was impossible to effect the capture ; and bidding 
the soldiers go about their business, and the coach to drive off. 
Hill let go of his prey sulkily, and waited for other opportuni- 
ties of revenge. The man of whom he was most jealous was 10 
Will Mountford, the comedian; Will removed, he thought 
Mrs. Bracegirdle might be his : and accordingly the Captain 
and his Lordship lay that night in wait for Will, and as he was 
coming out of a house in Norfolk Street, while Mohun en- 
gaged him in talk, Hill, in the words of the Attorney-General, 15 
made a pass and ran him clean through the body. 

Sixty-one of my Lord's peers finding him not guilty of 
murder, while but fourteen found him guilty, this very fast 
nobleman was discharged, and made his appearance seven 
years after in another trial for murder — when he, my Lord 20 
Warwick, and three gentlemen of the military profession, were 
concerned in the fight which ended in the death of Captain 
Coote. 

This jolly company were drinking together in "Lockit's" at 
Charing Cross, when angry words arose between Captain 25 
Coote and Captain French ; whom my Lord Mohun and my 
Lord the Earl of Warwick * and Holland endeavored to pacify. 

* The husband of the Lady Warwick who married Addison, and the father 
of the young Earl who was brought to his stepfather's bed to see "how a Chris- 
tian could die." He was amongst the wildest of the nobility of that day; 
and in the curious collection of Chap-Books at the British Museum, I have 
seen more than one anecdote of the freaks of the gay lord. He was popular 
in London, as such daring spirits have been in our time. The anecdotists 
speak very kindly of his practical jokes. Mohun was scarcely out of prison 
for his second homicide, when he went on Lord Macclesfield's embassy to the 
Elector of Hanover when Queen Anne sent the Garter to his Highness. The 



SS ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

My Lord Warwick was a dear friend of Captain Coote, lent 
him £ioo to buy his commission in the Guards ; once when 
the Captain was arrested for £13 by his tailor, my Lord lent 
him five guineas, often paid his reckoning for him, and showed 
5 him other offices of friendship. On this evening the disputants, 
French and Coote, being separated whilst they were upstairs, 
unluckily stopped to drink ale again at the bar of "Lockit's." 
The row began afresh — Coote lunged at French over the bar, 
and at last all six called for chairs, and went to Leicester Fields, 

10 where they fell to. Their Lordships engaged on the side of 
Captain Coote. My lord of Warwick was severely wounded 
in the hand, Mr. French also was stabbed, but honest Captain 
Coote got a couple of wounds — one especially, "a wound in 
the left side just under the short ribs, and piercing through 

15 the diaphragma," which did for Captain Coote. Hence the 
trials of my Lords Warwick and Mohun : hence the assemblage 
of peers, the report of the transaction in which these defunct 
fast men still live for the observation of the curious. My 
Lord of Warwick is brought to the bar by the Deputy-Gov- 

20 ernor of the Tower of London, having the ax carried before 
him by the gentleman jailer, who stood with it at the bar at 
the right hand of the prisoner, turning the edge from him ; 
the prisoner, at his approach, making three bows, one to his 
Grace the Lord High Steward, the other to the peers on each 

25 hand ; and his Grace and the peers return the salute. And 
besides these great personages, august in periwigs, and nod- 
ding to the right and left, a host of the small come up out of the 
past and pass before us — the jolly captains brawling in the 
tavern, and laughing and cursing over their cups — the drawer 

30 that serves, the bar-girl that waits, the baihff on the prowl, the 

chronicler of the expedition speaks of his Lordship as an amiable young man, 
who had been in bad company, but was quite repentant and reformed. He 
and Macartney afterwards murdered the Duke of Hamilton between them, in 
which act Lord Mohun died. This amiable Baron's name was Charles, and 
not Henry, as a recent novelist has christened him (in Esmond). 



STEELE 91 

chairmen trudging through the black lampless streets, ana 
smoking their pipes by the railings, whilst swords are clashing 
in the garden within. ''Help there ! a gentleman is hurt !" 
The chairmen put up their pipes, and help the gentleman 
over the railings, and carry him, ghastly and bleeding, to the 5 
Bagnio in Long Acre, where they knock up the surgeon — a 
pretty tall gentleman : but that wound under the short ribs 
has done for him. Surgeon, lords, captains, bailiffs, chairmen 
and gentleman jailer with your ax, where be you now ? The 
gentleman axeman's head is off his own shoulders ; the lords 10 
and judges can wag theirs no longer ; the bailiff's writs have 
ceased to run : the honest chairmen's pipes are put out, and 
with their brawny calves they have walked away into Hades 

— all as irrecoverably done for as Will Mountford or Captain 
Coote. The subject of our night's lecture saw all these people 15 

— rode in Captain Coote's company of the Guards very 
probably — wrote and sighed for Bracegirdle, went home tipsy 
in many a chair, after many a bottle, in many a tavern — fled 
from many a bailiff. 

In 1709, when the publication of the Tatler began, our great- 20 
great-grandfathers must have seized upon that new and de- 
lightful paper with much such eagerness as lovers of light 
literature in a later day exhibited when the Waverley novels 
appeared, upon which the public rushed, forsaking that feeble 
entertainment of which the Miss Porters, the Anne of Swan- 25 
seas, and worthy Mrs. Radcliffe herself, with her dreary castles 
and exploded old ghosts, had had pretty much the monopoly. 
I have looked over many of the comic books with which our 
ancestors amused themselves, from the novels of Swift's coad- . 
jutrix, Mrs. Manley, the delectable author of the ''New At- 30 
lantis," to the facetious productions of Tom Durfey, and Tom 
Brown, and Ned Ward, writer of the "London Spy" and 
several other volumes of ribaldry. The slang of the taverns 
and ordinaries, the wit of the bagnios, form the strongest part 



88 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

Tof the farrago of which these hbels are composed. In the 
excellent newspaper collection at the British Museum, you 
may see, besides, the Craftsman * and Postboy specimens — 
and queer specimens they are — of the higher literature of 

5 Queen Anne's time. Here is an abstract from a notable jour- 
nal bearing date Wednesday, October 13th, 1708, and entitled 
The British Apollo; or, curious amusements for the ingenious, 
by a society of gentlemen. The British Apollo invited and pro- 
fessed to answer questions upon all subjects of wit, morality, 

10 science, and even religion ; and two out of its four pages are 
filled with queries and replies much like some of the oracular 
penny prints of the present time. 

One of the first querists, referring to the passage that a 
bishop should be the husband of one wife, argues that po- 

15 lygamy is justifiable in the laity. The society of gentlemen 
conducting the British Apollo are posed by this casuist, and 
promise to give him an answer. Celinda then wishes to know 
from "the gentleman," concerning the souls of the dead, 
whether they shall have the satisfaction to know those whom 

20 they most valued in this transitory life. The gentlemen of 
the Apollo give but poor comfort to poor Celinda. They are 
inclined to think not ; for, say they, since every inhabitant of 
those regions will be infinitely dearer than here are our nearest 
relatives — what have we to do with a partial friendship in 

25 that happy place ? Poor Celinda ! it may have been a child 
or a lover whom she had lost, and was pining after, when the 
oracle of British A polio gave her this dismal answer. She has 
solved the question for herself by this time, and knows quite 
as well as the society of gentlemen. 

30 From theology we come to physics, and Q. asks, "Why 
does hot water freeze sooner than cold?" Apollo replies, 
"Hot water cannot be said to freeze sooner than cold; but 
water once heated and cold may be subject to freeze by the 

* The Craftsman did not appear till 1726, 



STEELE 91 

evaporation of the spirituous parts of the water, which renders 
it less able to withstand the power of frosty weather." 

The next query is rather a delicate one. " You, Mr. Apollo, 
who are said to be the God of Wisdom, pray give us the reason 
why kissing is so much in fashion : what benefit one receives 5 
by it, and who was the inventor, and you will oblige Corinna." 
To this queer demand the lips of Phoebus, smiHng, answer: 
"Pretty innocent Corinna ! Apollo owns that he was a little 
surprised by your kissing question, particularly at that part 
of it where you desire to know the benefit you receive by it. 10 
Ah ! madam, had you a lover, you would not come to Apollo 
for a solution ; since there is no dispute but the kisses of mu- 
tual lovers give infinite satisfaction. As to its invention, 'tis 
certain nature was its author, and it began with the first 
courtship." 15 

After a column more of questions, follow nearly two pages 
of poems, signed by Philander, Armenia, and the like, and 
chiefly on the tender passion ; and the paper winds up with a 
letter from Leghorn, an account of the Duke of Marlborough 
and Prince Eugene before Lille, and proposals for publishing 20 
two sheets on the present state of Ethiopia, by Mr. Hill : all 
of which is printed for the authors by J. Mayo, at the Printing 
Press against Water Lane in Fleet Street. What a change it 
must have been — how Apollo'' s oracles must have been struck 
dumb — when the Tatler appeared, and scholars, gentlemen, 25 
men of the world, men of genius, began to speak ! 

Shortly before the Boyne was fought, and young Swift had . 
begun to make acquaintance with English Court manners and 
English servitude, in Sir William Temple's family, another 
Irish youth was brought to learn his humanities at the old 30 
school of Charterhouse, near Smithfield ; to which foundation 
he had been appointed by James, Duke of Ormond, a gov- 
ernor of the House, and a patron of the lad's family. The 
boy was an orphan, and described, twenty years after, with a 



92 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

sweet pathos and simplicity, some of the earliest recollections 
of a life which was destined to be checkered by a strange 
variety of good and evil fortune. 

I am afraid no good report could be given by his masters 
5 and ushers of that thick-set, square-faced, black-eyed, soft- 
hearted little Irish boy. He was very idle. He was whipped 
deservedly a great number of times. Though he had very 
good parts of his own, he got other boys to do his lessons for 
him, and only took just as much trouble as should enable him 

lo to scuffle through his exercises, and by good fortune escape 
the flogging-block. One hundred and fifty years after, I 
have myself inspected, but only as an amateur, that instru- 
ment of righteous torture still existing, and in occasional use 
in a secluded private apartment of the old Charterhouse 

15 School^ and have no doubt it is the very counterpart, if not 
the ancient and interesting machine itself, at which poor Dick 
Steele submitted himself to the tormentors. 

Besides being very kind, lazy, and good-natured, this boy 
went invariably into debt with the tart woman ; ran out of 

20 bounds, and entered into pecuniary, or rather promissory 
engagements with the neighboring lollipop venders and pie 
men — exhibited an early fondness and capacity for drinking 
mum and sack, and borrowed from all his comrades who had 
money to lend. I have no sort of authority for the statement 

25 here made of Steele's early life ; but if the child is father of the 
man, the father of young Steele of Merton, who left Oxford 
without taking a degree, and entered the Life Guards — the 
father of Captain Steele of Lucas's Fusiliers, who got his 
company through the patronage of my Lord Cutts — the 

30 father of Mr. Steele the Commissioner of Stamps, the editor of 
the Gazette, the Tatler, and Spectator, the expelled Member of 
Parliament, and the author of the '' Tender Husband" and 
the "Conscious Lovers " ; if man and boy resembled each 
other, Dick Steele the schoolboy must have been one of the 



STEELE . 93 

most generous, good-for-nothing, amiable little creatures that 
ever conjugated the verb tupto, I beat, tuptomai, I am whipped, 
in any school in Great Britain. 

Almost every gentleman who does me the honor to hear me 
will remember that the very greatest character which he has s 
seen in the course of his life, and the person to whom he has 
looked up with the greatest wonder and reverence, was the 
head boy at his school. The schoolmaster himself hardly in- 
spires such an awe. The head boy construes as well as the 
schoolmaster himself. When he begins to speak the hall isio 
hushed, and every little boy listens. He writes off copies of 
Latin verses as melodiously as Virgil. He is good-natured, 
and, his own masterpieces achieved, pours out other copies 
of verses for other boys with an astonishing ease and fluency ; 
the idle ones only trembling lest they should be discovered on 15 
giving in their exercises and whipped because their poems were 
too good. I have seen great men in my time, but never such 
a great one as that head boy of my childhood : we all thought 
he must be Prime Minister, and I was disappointed on meeting 
him in after life to find he was no more than six feet high. 20 

Dick Steele, the Charterhouse gownboy, contracted such an 
admiration in the years of his childhood, and retained it faith- 
fully through his life. Through the school and through the 
world, whithersoever his strange fortune led this erring, way- 
ward, affectionate creature, Joseph Addison was always his 25 
head boy. Addison wrote his exercises. Addison did his 
best themes. He ran on Addison's messages ; fagged for him 
and blacked his shoes : to be in Joe's company was Dick's 
greatest pleasure, and he took a sermon or a caning from his 
monitor with the most boundless reverence, acquiescence, 30 
and affection.* 

* " Steele had the greatest veneration for Addison, and used to show it, in all 
companies, in a particular manner. Addison, now and then, used to play a 
little upon him; but he always took it well." — Pope. Spence's Anecdotes. 

" Sir Richard Steele was the best-natured creature in the world : even in 



94 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

Steele found Addison a stately College Don at Oxford, and 
himself did not make much figure at this place. He wrote a 
comedy, which, by the advice of a friend, the humble fellow 
burned there ; and some verses, which I dare say are as sublime 
5 as other gentlemen's compositions at that age ; but being 
smitten with a sudden love for military glory, he threw up the 
cap and gown for the saddle and bridle, and rode privately in 
the Horse Guards, in the Duke of Ormond's troop — the 
second — and, probably, with the rest of the gentlemen of his 

lo troop, "all mounted on black horses with white feathers in 
their hats, and scarlet coats richly laced," marched by King 
William, in Hyde Park, in November 1699,* and a great 
show of the nobility, besides twenty thousand people, and 
above a thousand coaches. ''The Guards had just got their 

15 new clothes," the London Post said : "they are extraordinary 
grand, and thought to be the finest body of horse in the world." 
But Steele could hardly have seen any actual service. He who 
wrote about himself, his mother, his wife, his loves, his debts, 
his friends, and the wine he drank, would have told us of his 

20 battles if he had seen any. His old patron, Ormond, probably 
got him his cornetcy in the Guards, from which he was pro- 
moted to be a captain in Lucas's Fusiliers, getting his com- 
pany through the patronage of Lord Cutts, whose secretary he 
was, and to whom he dedicated his work called the " Christian 

25 Hero." As for Dick, whilst writing this ardent devotional 
work, he was deep in debt, in drink, and in all the follies of the 
town; it is related that all the officers of Lucas's, and the 

his worst state of health, he seemed to desire nothing but to please and be 
pleased." — Dr. Young. Spence's Anecdotes. 

Steele, it may be noted, was a few weeks older than Addison. He was born 
in March, Addison on ist May, 1672. 

* Steele appears to have been a trooper in the Life Guards; but in 1699 he 
had received from Lord Cutts an ensigncy in the Coldstream Guards. In 
1702 he became captain in Lucas's regiment, which, however, was not called 
"Fusiliers." — See Aitken's Life of Steele. 



STEELE 95 

gentlemen of the Guards, laughed at Dick.* And in truth 
a theologian in liquor is not a respectable object, and a hermit, 

* "The gayety of his dramatic tone maybe seen in this Httle scene between 
two briUiant sisters, from his comedy The Funeral, or Grief a la Mode. Dick 
wrote this, he said, from "a necessity of enlivening his character," which, it 
seemed, the Christian Hero had a tendency to make too decorous, grave, and 
respectable in the eyes of readers of that pious piece. 

[Scene draws and discovers Lady Charlotte, reading at a table, — Lady 
PIarriet, playing at a glass, to and fro, and viewing herself.] 

"L. Ha. Nay, good sister, you may as well talk to me [looking at herself 
as she speaks] as sit staring at a book which I know you can't attend. — Good Dr. 
Lucas may have writ there what he pleases, but there's no putting Francis, 
Lord Hardy, now Earl of Brumpton, out of your head, or making him absent 
from your eyes. Do but look on me, now, and deny it if you can. 

"L. Ch. You are the maddest girl [smiling]. 

"L. Ha. Look ye, I knew you could not say it and forbear laughing. [Look- 
ing over Charlotte.] — Oh ! I see his name as plain as you do — F-r-a-n, Fran, 
— c-i-s, cis, Francis, 'tis in every line of the book. 

"L. Ch. [rising]. It's in vain, I see, to mind anything in such impertinent 
company — but, granting 'twere as you say, as to my Lord Hardy — 'tis more 
excusable to admire another than oneself. 

"L. Ha. No, I think not, — yes, I grant you, than really to be vain of one's 
person, but I don't admire myself, — Pish ! I don't believe my eyes to have that 
softness. [Looking in the glass.] They ain't so piercing: no, 'tis only stuflf, 
the men will be talking. — Some people are such admirers of teeth — Lord, 
what signifies teeth ! [Showing her teeth.] A very black-a-moor has as white a 
set of teeth as I. — No, sister, I don't admire myself, but I've a spirit of con- 
tradiction in me : I don't know I'm in love with myself, only to rival the men. 

"L. Ch. Ay, but Mr. Campley will gain ground ev'n of that rival of his, 
your dear self. 

"L. Ha. Oh, what have I done to you, that you should name that insolent 
intruder? A confident, opinionative fop. No, indeed, if I am, as a poetical 
lover of mine sighed and sung of both sexes, 

'The public envy and the public care,' 

I shan't be so easily catched — I thank him — I want but to be sure I should 
heartily torment him by banishing him, and then consider whether he should 
depart this life or not. 

"L. Ch. Indeed, sister, to be serious with you, this vanity in your humor 
does not at all become you. 

"L. Ha. Vanity ! All the matter is, we gay people are more sincere than 
you wise folks : all your life's an art. — Speak your soul. — Look you there. — 
[Hauling her to the glass.] Are you not struck with a secret pleasure when you 



96 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

though he may be out at elbows, must not be in debt to the 
tailor. Steele says of himself that he was always sinning and 
repenting. He beat his breast and cried most piteously when 
he did repent : but as soon as crying had made him thirsty, he 
5 fell to sinning again. In that charming paper in the Tatler, 
in which he records his father's death, his mother's griefs, his 
own most solemn and tender emotions, he says he is inter- 
rupted by the arrival of a hamper of wine, ''the same as is to 
be sold at Garra way's next week" ; upon the receipt of which 

lo he sends for three friends, and they fall to instantly, ''drink- 
ing two bottles apiece, with great benefit to themselves, and 
not separating till two o'clock in the morning." 

His life was so. Jack the drawer was always interrupting it, 
bringing him a bottle from the " Rose," or inviting him over to 

15 a bout there with Sir Plume and Mr. Diver ; and Dick wiped 
his eyes, which were whimpering over his papers, took down his 
laced hat, put on his sword and wig, kissed his wife and chil- 
dren, told them a lie about pressing business, and went off to 
the "Rose" to the jolly fellows. 

20 While Mr. Addison was abroad, and after he came home in 
rather a dismal way to wait upon Providence in his shabby 
lodging in the Haymarket, young Captain Steele was cutting a 

view that bloom in your look, that harmony in your shape, that promptitude in 
your mien ? 

"L. Ch. Well, simpleton, if I am at first so simple as to be a little taken 
with myself, I know it a fault, and take pains to correct it. 

"L. Ha. Pshaw! Pshaw! Talk this musty tale to old Mrs. Fardingale, 
'tis too soon for me to think at that rate. 

"Z,. Ch. They that think it too soon to understand themselves will very 
soon find it too late. — But tell me honestly, don't you like Campley ? 

"£. Ha. The fellow is not to be abhorred, if the forward thing did not think 
of getting me so easily. — Oh, I hate a heart I can't break when I please. — What 
makes the value of dear china, but that 'tis so brittle ? — were it not for that, 
you might as well have stone mugs in your closet." — The Funeral, Oct. 2d. 

"We knew the obHgations the stage had to his writings [Steele's]; there 
being scarcely a comedian of merit in our whole company whom his Tatlers 
had not made better by his recommendation of them." — Cibber. 



STEELE 97 

much smarter figure than that of his classical friend of Charter 
house Cloister and Maudlin Walk. Could not some painter 
give an interview between the gallant Captain of Lucas's, 
with his hat cocked, and his lace, and his face too, a trifle tar- 
nished with drink, and that poet, that philosopher, pale, 5 
proud, and poor, his friend and monitor of school days, of all 
days ? How Dick must have bragged about his chances and 
his hopes, and the fine company he kept, and the charms of 
the reigning toasts and popular actresses, and the number of 
bottles that he and my Lord and some other pretty fellows had 10 
cracked overnight at the "Devil," or the " Garter" ! Cannot 
one fancy Joseph Addison's calm smile and cold gray eyes 
following Dick for an instant, as he struts down the Mall to 
dine with the Guard at Saint James's, before he turns, with his 
sober pace and threadbare suit, to walk back to his lodgings 15 
up the two pair of stairs ? Steele's name was down for pro- 
motion, Dick always said himself, in the glorious, pious, and 
immortal William's last table-book. Jonathan Swift's name 
had been written here by the same hand too. 

Our worthy friend, the author of the '' Christian Hero," con- 20 
tinned to make no small figure about town by the use of his 
wits.* He was appointed Gazetteer: he wrote, in 1703, 
"The Tender Husband," his second play, in which there is 
some delightful farcical writing, and of which he fondly owned 
in after life, and when Addison was no more, that there were 25 
"many applauded strokes" from Addison's beloved hand. f 

* "There is not now in his sight that excellent man, whom Heaven made ■ 
his friend and superior, to be at a certain place in pain for what he should say 
or do. I will go on in his further encouragement. The best woman that ever 
man had cannot now lament and pine at his neglect of himself." — Steele [of 
himself]. The Theater. No. 12, Feb. 1719-20. 

t The Funeral supplies an admirable stroke of humor, — one which Sydney- 
Smith has used as an illustration of the faculty in his lectures. 

The undertaker is talking to his employees about their duty. 

"Sable. Ha, you! — A little more upon the dismal [forming their counte- 
nances] ; this fellow has a good mortal look, — place him near the corpse : that 



98 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

Is it not a pleasant partnership to remember? Can't one 
fancy Steele full of spirits and youth, leaving his gay company 
to go to Addison's lodging, where his friend sits in the shabby 
sitting room, quite serene, and cheerful, and poor? In 1704, 
5 Steele came on the town with another comedy, and behold it 
was so moral and religious, as poor Dick insisted, — so dull the 
town thought, — that the "Lying Lover" was damned.*. 

Addison's hour of success now came, and he was able to 
help our friend the "Christian Hero" in such a way, that, if 

10 there had been any chance of keeping that poor tipsy champion 
upon his ]egs, his fortune was safe, and his competence as- 
sured. Steele procured the place of Commissioner of Stamps : 
he wrote so richly, so gracefully often, so kindly always, with 
such a pleasant wit and easy frankness, with such a gush of 

15 good spirits and good humor, that his early papers may be 
compared to Addison's own, and are to be read, by a male 
reader at least, with quite an equal pleasure.! 

wainscot-face must be o'top of the stairs; that fellow's almost in a fright (that 
looks as if he were full of some strange misery) at the end of the hall. So — But 
I'll fix you all myself. Let's have no laughing now on any provocation. Look 
yonder — that hale, well-looking puppy ! You ungrateful scoundrel, did not I 
pity you, take you out of a great man's service, and show you the pleasure of 
receiving wages ? Did not I give you ten, then fifteen, and twenty shillings a week 
to be sorrowful? — and the more I give you I think the gladder you are /" 

* There is some confusion here as to dates. Steele's first play, the Funeral 
was brought out in December 1701 ; his second, the Lying Lover in December 
1703 ; and his third the Tender Husband in April 1705. 

t "From my own Apartment: Nov. 16 

"There are several persons who have many pleasures and entertainments in 
their possession, which they do not enjoy ; it is, therefore, a kind and good ofiice 
to acquaint them with their own happiness, and turn their attention to such 
instances of their good fortune as they are apt to overlook. Persons in the 
married state often want such a monitor ; and pine away their days by looking 
upon the same condition in anguish and murmuring, which carries with it, in 
the opinion of others, a complication of all the pleasures of life, and a retreat 
from its inquietudes. 

"I am led into this thought by a visit I made to an old friend who was for- 
merly my schoolfellow. He came to town last week, with his family, for the win- 



STEELE 99 

After the Tatler in 1711, the famous Spectator made its 
R.ppearance, and this was followed, at various intervals, by 
many periodicals under the same editor — the Guardian — • 

ter; and yesterday morning sent me word his wife expected me to dinner. I 
am, as it were, at home at that house, and every member of it knows me for 
their well-wisher. I cannot, indeed, express the pleasure it is to be met by the 
children with so much joy as I am when I go thither. The boys and girls strive 
who shall come first, when they think it is I that am knocking at the door ; and 
that child which loses the race to me nms back again to tell the father it is Mr. 
Bickerstaff. This day I was led in by a pretty girl that we all thought must 
have forgot me; for the family has been out of town these two years. Her 
knowing me again was a mighty subject with us, and took up our discourse at 
the first entrance; after which, they began to rally me upon a thousand little 
stories they heard in the country, about my marriage to one of my neighbors' 
daughters ; upon which, the gentleman, my friend, said, 'Nay ; if Mr. Bickerstaff 
marries a child of any of his old companions, I hope mine shall have the prefer- 
ence : there is Mrs. Mary is now sixteen, and would make him as fine a widow 
as the best of them. But I know him too well ; he is so enamored with the very 
memory of those who flourished in our youth, that he will not so much as look 
upon the modern beauties. I remember, old gentleman, how often you went 
home in a day to refresh your countenance and dress when Teraminta reigned 
in your heart. As we came up in the coach, I repeated to my wife some of your 
verses on her.' With such reflections on little passages which happened long ago, 
we passed oxir time during a cheerful and elegant meal. After dinner his lady 
left the room, as did also the children. As soon as we were alone, he took me 
by the hand : ' Well, my good friend, ' says he, ' I am heartily glad to see thee ; I 
was afraid you would never have seen all the company that dined with you to- 
day again. Do not you think the good woman of the house a little altered 
since you followed her from the playhouse to find out who she was for me ? ' I 
perceived a tear fall down his cheek as he spoke, which moved me not a little. 
But, to turn the discourse, I said, 'She is not, indeed, that creature she was 
when she returned me the letter I carried from you, and told me, " She hoped, 
as I was a gentleman, I would be employed no more to trouble her, who had 
never offended me ; but would be so much the gentleman's friend as to dissuade 
him from a pursuit which he could never succeed in." You may remember I 
thought her in earnest, and you were forced to employ your cousin Will, who 
made his sister get acquainted with her for you. You cannot expect her to be 
forever fifteen.' 'Fifteen!' replied my good friend. 'Ah! you Httle under- 
stand — you, that have lived a bachelor — how great, how exquisite a pleasure 
there is in being really beloved ! It is impossible that the most beauteous 
face in nature should raise in me such pleasing ideas as when I look upon that 
excellent woman. That fading in her countenance is chiefly caused by her 
watching with me in my fever. This was followed by a fit of sickness, which 
had like to have carried me off last winter. I tell you, sincerely, I have so 



lOO ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

the E^iglishman — the Lover, whose love was rather insipid — 
the Reader, of whom the pubHc saw no more after his second 
appearance — the Theater, under the pseudonym of Sir 

many obligations to her that I cannot, with any sort of moderation, think of 
her present state of heahh. But, as to what you say of fifteen, she gives me 
every day pleasure beyond what I ever knew in the possession of her beauty 
when I was in the vigor of youth. Every moment of her hfe brings me fresh 
instances of her complacency to my inclinations, and her prudence in regard to 
my fortune. Her face is to me much more beautiful than when I first saw it ; 
there is no decay in any feature which I cannot trace from the very instant it 
was occasioned by some anxious concern for my welfare and interests. Thus, 
at the same time, methinks, the love I conceived towards her for what she was, 
is heightened by my gratitude for what she is. The love of a wife is as much 
above the idle passion commonly called by that name, as the loud laughter of 
buffoons is inferior to the elegant mirth of gentlemen. Oh ! she is an inesti- 
mable jewel ! In her examination of her household affairs, she shows a certain 
fearf ulness to find fault, which makes her servants obey her like children ; and 
the meanest we have has an ingenuous shame for an offense not always to be 
seen in children in other famiUes. I speak freely to you, my old friend; ever 
since her sickness, things that gave me the quickest joy before turn now to a 
certain anxiety. As the children play in the next room, I know the poor things 
by their steps, and am considering what they must do should they lose their 
mother in their tender years. The pleasure I used to take in telling my boy 
stories of battles, and asking my girl questions about the disposal of her baby, 
and the gossiping of it, is turned into inward reflection and melancholy.' 

"He would have gone on in this tender way, when the good lady entered, 
and, with an inexpressible sweetness in her countenance, told us, ' she had been 
searching her closet for something very good to treat such an old friend as I 
was.' Her husband's eyes sparkled with pleasure at the cheerfulness of her 
countenance; and I saw all his fears vanish in an instant. The lady observ- 
mg something in our looks which showed we had been more serious than ordinary, 
and seeing her husband receive her with great concern under a forced cheer- 
fulness, immediately guessed at what we had been talking of; and applying 
herself to me, said, with a smile, ' Mr. Bickerstaff, do not believe a word of what 
he tells you ; I shall still live to have you for my second, as I have often promised 
you, unless he takes more care of himself than he has done since his coming to 
town. You must know he tells me, that he finds London is a much more healthy 
place than the country ; for he sees several of his old acquaintances and school- 
fellows are here — young fellows with fair, full-bottomed periwigs. I could scarce 
keep him this morning from going out open-breasted.^ My friend, who is always 
extremely delighted with her agreeable humor, made her sit down with us. She 
did it with that easiness which is peculiar to women of sense ; and to keep up the 
good humor she had brought in with her, turned her raillery upon me. 'Mr. 
Bickerstaff, you remember you followed me one night from the playhouse; 



STEELE loi 

John Edgar, which Steele wrote while Governor of the Royal 
Company of Comedians, to which post, and to that of Sur- 
veyor of the Royal Stables at Hampton Court, and to the Com- 
mission of the Peace for Middlesex, and to the honor of knight- 
hood, Steele had been preferred soon after the accession of s 
George I ; whose cause honest Dick had nobly fought, through 
disgrace, and danger, against the most formidable enemies, 

suppose you should carry me thither to-morrow night, and lead me in the front 
box.' This put us into a long field of discourse about the beauties who were 
the mothers to the present, and shined in the boxes twenty years ago. I told 
her ' I was glad she had transferred so many of her charms, and I did not ques- 
tion but her eldest daughter was within half-a-year of being a toast.' 

"We were pleasing ourselves with this fantastical preferment of the young 
lady, when, on a sudden, we were alarmed with the noise of a drum, and im- 
mediately entered my little godson to give me a point of war. His mother, 
between laughing and chiding, would have put him out of the room; but I 
would not part with him so. I found, upon conversation with him, though he 
was a little noisy in his mirth, that the child had excellent parts, and was a 
great master of all the learning on the other side of eight years old. I per- 
ceived him a very great historian in JEsop's Fables; but he frankly declared 
to me his mind, 'that he did not delight in that learning, because he did not 
believe they were true;' for which reason I found he had very much turned 
his studies, for about a twelvemonth past, into the lives of Don Bellianis of 
Greece, Guy of Warwick, 'the Seven Champions,' and other historians of that 
age. I could not but observe the satisfaction the father took in the forwardness 
of his son, and that these diversions might turn to some profit. I found the 
boy had made remarks which might be of service to him during the coiirse of 
his whole life. He would tell you the mismanagement of John Hickerthrift, 
find fault with the passionate temper in Bevis of Southampton, and loved Saint 
George for being the champion of England ; and by this means had his thoughts 
insensibly molded into the notions of discretion, virtue, and honor. I was 
extoUing his accomplishments, when his mother told me ' that the little girl who 
led me in this morning was, in her way, a better scholar than he. Betty,' said 
she, 'deals chiefly in fairies and sprights; and sometimes in a winter night will 
terrify the maids with her accounts, until they are afraid to go up to bed." 

"I sat with them until it was very late, sometimes in merry, sometimes in 
serious discourse, with this particular pleasure, which gives the only true relish 
to all conversation, a sense that every one of us liked each other. I went home, 
considering the different conditions of a married life and that of a bachelor; 
and I must confess it struck me with a secret concern to reflect, that whenever 
I go off I shall leave no traces behind me. In this pensive mood I return to my 
family ; that is to say, to my maid, my dog, my cat, who only can be the better 
or worse for what happens to me." — The Tatler. 



I02 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

against traitors and bullies, against Bolingbroke and Swift 
in the last reign. With the arrival of the King, that splendid 
conspiracy broke up ; and a golden opportunity came to Dick 
Steele, whose hand, alas, was too careless to gripe it.* 

5 Steele married twice ; and outlived his places, his scheme, 
his wife, his income, his health, and almost everything but his 
kind heart. That ceased to trouble him in 1729, when he 
died, worn out and almost forgotten by his contemporaries, 
in Wales, where he had the remnant of a property. 

10 Posterity has been kinder to this amiable creature; all 
women especially are bound to be grateful to Steele, as he was 
the first of our writers who really seemed to admire and respect 
them. Congreve the Great, who alludes to the low estimation 
in which women were held in Elizabeth's time, as a reason why 

15 the women of Shakespeare make so small a figure in the poet's 
dialogues, though he can himself pay splendid compliments to 
women, yet looks on them as mere instruments of gallantry, 
and destined, like the most consummate fortifications, to fall, 
after a certain time, before the arts and bravery of the be- 

20 sieger, man. There is a letter of Swift's entitled "Advice to a 
very Young Married Lady," which shows the Dean's opinion 
of the female society of his day, and that if he despised man he 
utterly scorned women too. No lady of our time could be 
treated by any man, were he ever so much a wit or Dean, in 

25 such a tone of insolent patronage and vulgar protection. In 
this performance, Swift hardly takes pains to hide his opinion 
that a woman is a fool : tells her to read books, as if reading 
was a novel accomplishment ; and informs her that "not one 
gentleman's daughter in a thousand has been brought to read 

30 or understand her own natural tongue." Addison laughs at 
women equally ; but, with the gentleness and poHteness of his 
nature, smiles at them and watches them, as if they were harm- 
less, half-witted, amusing, pretty creatures, only made to be 

* He took what he could get, though it was not much. 



STEELE 103 

men's playthings. It was Steele who first began to pay a 
manly homage to their goodness and understanding, as well 
as to their tenderness and beauty.* In his comedies the heroes 
do not rant and rave abaut the divine beauties of Gloriana 
or Statira, as the characters were made to do in the chivalry 5 
romances and the high-flown dramas just going out of vogue ; 
but Steele admires women's virtue, acknowledges their 
sense, and adores their purity and beauty, with an ardor and 
strength which should win the good- will of all women to their 
hearty and respectful champion. It is this ardor, this re- 10 
spect, this manliness, which makes his comedies so pleasant 
and their heroes such fine gentlemen. He paid the finest 
compliment to a woman that perhaps ever was offered. Of 
one woman, whom Congreve had also admired and cele- 
brated, Steele says, that "to have loved her was a liberal 15 
education." "How often," he says, dedicating a volume to 
his wife, "how often has your tenderness removed pain from 
my sick head, how often anguish from my afflicted heart ! 
If there are such beings as guardian angels, they are thus 
employed. I cannot believe one of them to be more good in 20 
inclination, or more charming in form than my wife." His 
breast seems to warm and his eyes to kindle when he meets 
with a good and beautiful woman, and it is with his heart 
as well as with his hat that he salutes her. About children, 
and all that relates to home he is not less tender, and more 25 

* "As to the pursuits after affection and esteem, the fair sex are happy in 
this particular, that with them the one is much more nearly related to the other 
than in men. The love of a woman is inseparable from some esteem of her; 
and as she is naturally the object of affection, the woman who has your esteem 
has also some degree of your love. A man that dotes on a woman for her beauty, 
will whisper his friend, "That creature has a great deal of wit when you are 
well acquainted with her." And if you examine the bottom of your esteem 
for a woman, you will find you have a greater opinion of her beauty than any- 
body else. As to us men, I design to pass most of my time with the facetious 
Harry Bickerstaff ; but William Bickerstaff, the most prudent man of our fam- 
ily, shall be my executor." — Tatler, No. 206. 



I04 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

than once speaks in apology of what he calls his softness. He 
would have been nothing without that delightful weakness. 
It is that which gives his works their worth and his style its 
charm. It, like his life, is full of faults and careless blunders ; 
5 and redeemed, like that, by his sweet and compassionate 
nature. 

We possess of poor Steele's wild and checkered life some of 
the most curious memoranda that ever were left of a man's 
biography.* Most men's letters, from Cicero down to Wal- 

* The Correspondence of Steele passed after his death into the possession of 
his daughter EHzabeth, by his second wife, Miss Scuxlock, of Carmarthenshire. 
She married the Hon. John, afterwards third Lord Trevor. At her death, part 
of the letters passed to Mr. Thomas, a grandson of a natural daughter of Steele's; 
and part to Lady Trevor's next of kin, Mr. Scurlock. They were pubUshed 
by the learned Nichols — from whose later edition of them, in 1809, our speci- 
mens are quoted. 

Here we have him, in his courtship — which was not a very long one : — 

To Mrs. Scurlock 

Aug. 30, 1707 

"Madam, — I beg pardon that my paper is not finer, but I am forced to 
write from a coffeehouse, where I am attending about business. There is a 
dirty crowd of busy faces all around me, talking of money ; while all my ambi- 
tion, all my wealth, is love ! Love which animates my heart, sweetens my 
humor, enlarges my soul, and affects every action of my life. It is to my lovely 
charmer I owe, that many noble ideas are continually affixed to my words 
and actions; it is the natural effect of that generous passion to create in the 
admirer some similitude of the object admired. Thus, my dear, am I every day 
to improve from so sweet a companion. Look up, my fair one, to that Heaven 
which made thee such ; and join with me to implore its influence on our tender 
innocent hours, and beseech the Author of love to bless the rites He has ordained 
— and mingle with our happiness a just sense of our transient condition, and a 
resignation to His will, which only can regulate our minds to a steady endeavor 
to please Him and each other. 

" I am forever your faithful servant, 

"Rich. Steele" 

Some few hours afterwards, apparently, Mistress Scurlock received the next 
one — obviously written later in the day ! — 

"Saturday Night {Aug. 30, 1707) 
" Dear lovely Mrs. Scurlock, — I have been in very good company, 
where your health, under the character of the woman I love best, has been often 



STEELE 105 

pole, or down to the great men of our own time, if you will, 
are doctored compositions, and written with an eye suspicious 
towards posterity. That dedication of Steele's to his wife is 
an artificial performance, possibly ; at least, it is written with 
that degree of artifice which an orator uses in arranging a 5 
statement for the House, or a poet employs in preparing a 
sentiment in verse or for the stage. But there are some four 

drunk ; so that I may say that I am dead drunk for your sake, which is more 
than / die for you. Rich. Steele" 

To Mrs. Scurlock 

Sept. I, 1707 

" Madam, — It is the hardest thing in the world to be in love, and yet attend 
business. As for me, all who speak to me find me out, and I must lock myself 
up, or other people wiU do it for me. 

"A gentleman asked me this morning, 'What news from Lisbon?' and I 
answered, 'She is exquisitely handsome.' Another desired to know 'when I 
had last been at Hampton Court?' I replied, 'It will be on Tuesday come 
se'nnight.' Pr'ythee allow me at least to kiss your hand before that day, that 
my mind may be in some composure. O Love ! 

" ' A thousand torments dwell about thee. 
Yet who coidd live, to Uve without thee ? ' 

"Methinks I could write a volume to you; but all the language on earth 
would fail in saying how much, and with what disinterested passion, 

"I am ever yours, 

"Rich. Steele" 

Two days after this, he is found expounding his circumstances and prospects 
to the young lady's mamma. He dates from "Lord Sunderland's office, White- 
hall;" and states his clear income at £1025 per annum. "I promise myself," 
says he, "the pleasure of an industrious and virtuous life, in studying to do 
things agreeable to you." 

They were married, according to the most probable conjectures, about the 
7th Sept. There are traces of a tiff about the middle of the next month; she 
being prudish and fidgety, as he was impassioned and reckless. General prog- 
ress, however, may be seen from the following notes. The "house in Bxiry 
Street, Saint James's," was now taken. 

To Mrs. Steele 

Oct. 16, 1707 

"Dearest Being on Earth, — Pardon me if you do not see me till eleven 



io6 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

hundred letters of Dick Steele's to his wife, which that thrifty 
woman preserved accurately, and which could have been 
written but for her and her alone. They contain details 
of the business, pleasures, quarrels, reconciliations of the pair ; 
5 they have all the genuineness of conversation ; they are as 
artless as a child's prattle, and as confidential as a curtain 

o'clock, having met a schoolfellow from India, by whom I am to be informed 
on things this night which expressly concern your obedient husband, 

"Rich. Steele" 

To Mrs. Steele 

"Eight 0^ clock, Fountain Tavern: 
"Oct. 22, 1707 
"My Dear, — I beg of you not to be uneasy ; for I have done a great deal of 
business to-day very successfully, and wait an hour or two about my Gazette. 

Dec. 22, 1707 
"My dear, dear Wife, — I write to let you know I do not come home to 
dinner, being obliged to attend some business abroad, of which I shall give 
you an account (when I see you in the evening), as becomes your dutiful and 
obedient husband." 

"Devil Tavern, Temple Bar : 
"Jan. 3, 1707-08 
"Dear Prue, — I have partly succeeded in my business to-day, and inclose 
two guineas as earnest of more. Dear Prue, I cannot come home to dinner. 
I languish for your welfare, and will never be a moment careless more. 

"Your faithful husband," &c. 

Jan. 14, 1707-08 
"Dear Wife, — Mr. Edgecombe, Ned Ask, and Mr. Lumley have desired 
me to sit an hour with them at the 'George' in Pall Mall, for which I desire 
your patience till twelve o'clock, and that you will go to bed," &c. 

" Gray's Inn : Feb. 3, 1708 
"Dear Prue, — If the man who has my shoemaker's bill calls, let him be 
answered that I shall call on him as I come home. I stay here in order to get 
Jonson to discount a bill for me, and shall dine with him for that end. He is 
expected at home every minute. Your most humble, obedient servant," &c. 

" Tennis-Court Coffeehouse : 
May 5, 1708 
"Dear Wife, — I hope I have done this day what will be pleasing to you; 
in the meantime shall lie this night at a baker's, one Leg, over against the ' Devil 



STEELE 107 

lecture. Some are written from the printing office, where he 
is waiting for the proof sheets of his Gazette, or his Tatler ; 
some are written from the tavern, whence he promises to come 
to his wife ''within a pint of wine," and where he has given a 
rendezvous to a friend or a money lender : some are composed 5 
in a high state of vinous excitement, when his head is flustered 
with burgundy, and his heart abounds with amorous warmth 
for his darling Prue : some are under the influence of the dismal 
headache and repentance next morning : some, alas, are from 
the lockup house, where the lawyers have impounded him, 10 
and where he is waiting for bail. You trace many years of 
the poor fellow's career in these letters. In September 1707, 
from which day she began to save the letters, he married the 
beautiful Mistress Scurlock. You have his passionate pro- 
testations to the lady ; his respectful proposals to her mamma ; 15 
his private prayer to Heaven when the union so ardently 
desired was completed; his fond professions of contrition 
and promises of amendment, when, immediately after his 

Tavern/ at Charing Cross. I shall be able to confront the fools who wish me 
uneasy, and shall have the satisfaction to see thee cheerful and at ease. 

"If the printer's boy be at home, send him hither; and let Mrs. Todd send 
by the boy my nightgown, slippers, and clean linen. You shall hear from me 
early in the morning," &c. 

Dozens of similar letters follow, with occasional guineas, little parcels of 
tea, or walnuts, &c. In 1709 the Tatler made its appearance. The following 
curious note dates April 7th, 1710 : — 

"I inclose to you ['Dear Prue'] a receipt for the saucepan and spoon, and 
a note of £23 of Lewis's, which will make up the £50 I promised for your ensuing 
occasion. 

"I know no happiness in this life in any degree comparable to the pleasure 
I have in your person and society. I only beg of you to add to your other 
charms a fearfulness to see a man that loves you in pain and uneasiness, to make 
me as happy as it is possible to be in this life. Rising a little in a morning, and 
being disposed to a cheerfulness . . . would not be amiss." 

In another, he is found excusing his coming home, being " invited to supper 
to Mr. Boyle's." "Dear Prue," he says on this occasion, "do not send after 
me, for I shall be ridiculous." 



io8 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

marriage, there began to be just cause for the one and need 
for the other. 

Captain Steele took a house for his lady upon their mar- 
riage, "the third door from Germain Street, left hand of 
5 Berry Street," and the next year he presented his wife with a 
country house at Hampton. It appears she had a chariot 
and pair, and sometimes four horses: he himself enjoyed a 
little horse for his own riding. He paid, or promised to pay, 
his barber fifty pounds a year, and always went abroad in a 

lo laced coat and a large black buckled periwig, that must have 
cost somebody fifty guineas. He was rather a well-to-do 
gentleman. Captain Steele, with the proceeds of his estates in 
Barbadoes (left to him by his first wife), his income as a writer 
of the Gazette, and his ofiice of gentleman waiter to his Royal 

15 Highness Prince George. His second wife brought him a 
fortune too. But it is melancholy to relate, that with these 
houses and chariots and horses and income, the Captain was 
constantly in want of money, for which his beloved bride was 
asking as constantly. In the course of a few pages we begin 

20 to find the shoemaker calling for money, and some directions 
from the Captain, who has not thirty pounds to spare. He 
sends his wife, ''the beautifullest object in the world," as he 
calls her, and evidently in reply to appHcations of her own, 
which have gone the way of all waste paper, and lighted Dick's 

25 pipes, which were smoked a hundred and forty years ago — 
he sends his wife now a guinea, then a half-guinea, then a couple 
of guineas, then a half pound of tea ; and again no money and 
no tea at all, but a promise that his darling Prue shall have some 
in a day or two : or a request, perhaps, that she will send over 

30 his nightgown and shaving plate to the temporary lodging 
where the nomadic Captain is lying, hidden from the bailiffs. 
Oh that a Christian hero and late Captain in Lucas's should 
be afraid of a dirty Sheriff's officer ! That the pink and pride 
of chivalry should turn pale before a writ ! It stands to 



V' (; STEELE 109 

record in poor Dick's own handwriting — the queer collection 
is preserved at the British Museum to this present day — • 
that the rent of the nuptial house in Jermyn Street, sacred 
to unutterable tenderness and Prue, and three doors from 
Bury Street, was not paid until after the landlord had puts 
in an execution on Captain Steele's furniture. Addison sold 
the house and furniture at Hampton, and, after deducting 
the sum which his incorrigible friend was indebted to him, 
handed over the residue of the proceeds of the sale to poor 
Dick, who wasn't in the least angry at Addison's summary 10 
proceeding, and I dare say was very glad of any sale or execu- 
tion, the result of which was to give him a little ready money. 
Having a small house in Jermyn Street for which he couldn't 
pay, and a country house at Hampton on which he had bor- 
rowed money, nothing must content Captain Dick but the 15 
taking, in 171 2, a much finer, larger, and grander house in 
Bloomsbury Square : where his unhappy landlord got no 
better satisfaction than his friend in Saint James's, and where 
it is recorded that Dick, giving a grand entertainment, had a 
half-dozen queer-looking fellows in livery to wait upon his 20 
noble guests, and confessed that his servants were bailiffs 
to a man. "I fared like a distressed prince," the kindly 
prodigal writes, generously comphmenting Addison for his 
assistance in the Tatler, — "I fared like a distressed prince, 
who calls in a powerful neighbor to his aid. I was undone 25 
by my auxiliary ; when I had once called him in, I could not 
subsist without dependence on him." Poor needy Prince of 
Bloomsbury ! think of him in his palace with his aUies from 
Chancery Lane ominously guarding him. 

All sorts of stories are told indicative of his recklessness and 30 
his good humor. One narrated by Doctor Hoadly is exceed- 
ingly characteristic ; it shows the Hfe of the time ; and our 
poor friend very weak, but very kind both in and out of his 
cups. 



no ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

''My father," says Doctor John Hoadly, the Bishop's son, 
'Svhen Bishop of Bangor, was, by invitation, present at one 
of the Whig meetings, held at the 'Trumpet,' in Shire Lane, 
when Sir Richard, in his zeal, rather exposed himself, having 
5 the double duty of the day upon him, as well to celebrate the 
immortal memory of King William, it being the 4th Novem- 
ber, as to drink his friend Addison up to conversation pitch, 
whose phlegmatic constitution was hardly warmed for society 
by that time. Steele was not fit for it. Two remarkable 

10 circumstances happened. John Sly, the hatter of facetious 
memory, was in the house; and John, pretty mellow, took 
it into his head to come into the company on his knees, with 
a tankard of ale in his hand to drink off to the immortal mem- 
ory, and to return in the same manner. Steele, sitting next 

15 my father, whispered him — Do laugh. It is humanity to 
laugh. Sir Richard, in the evening, being too much in the 
same condition, was put into a chair, and sent home. Noth- 
ing would serve him but being carried to the Bishop of Ban- 
gor's, late as it was. However, the chairman carried him 

20 home, and got him upstairs, when his great complaisance 
would wait on them downstairs, which he did, and then was 
got quietly to bed."* 

There is another amusing story which, I believe, that re- 
nowned collector, Mr. Joseph Miller, or his successors, have 

25 incorporated into their work. Sir Richard Steele, at a time 
when he was much occupied with theatrical affairs, built 
himself a pretty private theater, and before it was opened to 
his friends and guests, was anxious to try whether the hall was 
well adapted for hearing. Accordingly he placed himself 

30 in the most remote part of the gallery, and begged the car- 

* Of this famous Bishop, Steele wrote — 

"Virtue with so much ease on Bangor sits, 
All faults he pardons, though he none commits." 

This couplet was sent to Hoadly next day in an apologetic letter. 



STEELE III 

penter who had built the house to speak up from the stage. 
The man at first said that he was unaccustomed to public 
speaking, and did not know what to say to his honor ; but the 
good-natured knight called out to him to say whatever was 
uppermost ; and, after a moment, the carpenter began, in a 5 
voice perfectly audible: ''Sir Richard Steele !" he said, "for 
three months past me and my men has been a working in this 
theater, and we've never seen the color of your honor's money : 
we will be very much obliged if you'll pay it directly, for until 
you do we won't drive in another nail." Sir Richard said 10 
that his friend's elocution was perfect, but that he didn't 
like his subject much. 

The great charm of Steele's writing is its naturalness. He 
wrote so quickly and carelessly that he was forced to make the 
reader his confidant, and had not the time to deceive him. He 15 
had a sm.all share of book learning, but a vast acquaintance 
with the world. He had known men and taverns. He had 
lived with gownsmen, with troopers, with gentlemen ushers 
of the Court, with men and women of fashion ; with authors 
and wits, with the inmates of the spunging-houses, and with 20 
the frequenters of all the clubs and coffeehouses in the town. 
He was liked in all company because he liked it ; and you like 
to see his enjoyment as you like to see the glee of a boxful of 
children at the pantomime. He was not of those lonely ones 
of the earth whose greatness obliged them to be solitary ; 25 
on the contrary, he admired, I think, more than any man who 
ever wrote ; and full of hearty applause and sympathy, wins 
upon you by calling you to share his delight and good- 
humor. His laugh rings through the whole house. He must 
have been invaluable at a tragedy, and have cried as much as 30 
the most tender young lady in the boxes. He has a relish for 
beauty and goodness wherever he meets it. He admired 
Shakespeare affectionately, and more than any man of his 
time : and according to his generous expansive nature, called 



112 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

upon all his company to like what he liked himself. He did 
not damn with faint praise : he was in the world and of it ; 
and his enjoyment of life presents the strangest contrast to 
Swift's savage indignation and Addison's lonely serenity.* 

* Here we have some of his later letters : — 

To Lady Steele 

"Hampton Court : March i6, 1716-17 
"Dear Prue, — If you have written anything to me which I should have 
received last night, I beg your pardon that I cannot answer till the next post. 
. . . Your son at the present writing is mighty well employed in tumbHng on 
the floor of the room, and sweeping the sand with a feather. He grows a most 
delightful child, and very full of play and spirit. He is also a very great scholar : 
he can read his primer ; and I have brought down my Virgil. He makes most 
shrewd remarks about the pictures. We are very intimate friends and play- 
fellows. He begins to be very ragged ; and I hope I shall be pardoned if I equip 
him with new clothes and frocks, or what Mrs. Evans and I shall think for his 

service." 

To Lady Steele 

[Undated] 

"You tell me you want a little flattery from me. I assure you I know no 
one who deserves so much commendation as yourself, and to whom saying the 
best things would be so little Uke flattery. The thing speaks for itself, con- 
sidering you as a very handsome woman that loves retirement — - one who does 
not want wit, and yet is extremely sincere; and so I could go through all the 
vices which attend the good qualities of other people, of which you are exempt, 
But, indeed, though you have every perfection, you have an extravagant fault, 
which almost frustrates the good in you to me ; arid that is, that you do not 
love to dress, to appear, to shine out, even at my request, and to make me proud 
of you, or rather to indulge the pride I have that you are mine. . . . 

"Your most affectionate obsequious husband, 

"RiCH-ARD Steele 

"A quarter of Molly's schooling is paid. The children are perfectly well." 

To Lady Steele 

"March 26, 17 17 
" My DEAREST Prue, — I have received yours, wherein you give me the 
sensible affliction of telling me enow of the continual pain in your head. . . . 
When I lay in your place, and on your pillow, I assure you I fell into tears last 
night, to think that my charming little insolent might be then awake and in 
pain ; and took it to be a sin to go to sleep. 

"For this tender passion towards you, I must be contented that your Prue- 
ship will condescend to call yourself my well-wisher. .". ." 

At the time when the above later letters were written. Lady Steele was in 



STEELE 113 

Permit me to read to you a passage from each writer, curi- 
ously indicative of his pecuHar humor : the subject is the same, 
and the mood the very gravest. We have said that upon all 
the actions of man, the most trifling and the most solemn, the 
humorist takes upon himself to comment. All readers of our 5 
old masters know the terrible lines of Swift, in which he hints 
at his philosophy and describes the end of mankind : * -^ 

"Amazed, confused, its fate unknown, 
The world stood trembling at Jove's throne 
While each pale sinner hung his head, 10 

Jove, nodding, shook the heavens and said: 

'Offending race of human kind. 
By nature, reason, learning, blind ; 
You who through frailty stepped aside. 

And you who never err'd through pride ; 15 

You who in different sects were shamm'd> 
And come to see each other damn'd ; 
(So some folk told you, but they knew 
No more of Jove's designs than you ;) 

The world's mad business now is o'er, 20 

And I resent your freaks no more ; 
/ to such blockheads set my wit, 
I damn such fools — go, go, you're bit !'" 

Addison speaking on the very same theme, but with how 
different a voice, says, in his famous paper on Westminster 25 
Abbey {Spectator, No. 26) : — 

"For my own part, though I am always serious, I do not 
know what it is to be melancholy, and can therefore take a 
view of nature in her deep and solemn scenes, with the same 
pleasure as in her most gay and delightful ones. When 1 30 

Wales, looking after her estate there. Steele, about this time, was much oc- 
cupied with a project for conveying fish aUve, by which, as he constantly assures 
his wife, he firmly believed he should make his fortune. It did not succeed, 
however. 

Lady Steele died in December of the succeeding year. She Ues buried in 
Westminster Abbey. 

* Lord Chesterfield sends these verses to Voltaire in a characteristic letter. 



114 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

look upon the tombs of the great, every emotion of envy dies 
within me ; when I read the epitaphs of the beautiful, every 
inordinate desire goes out; when I meet with the grief of 
parents on a tombstone, my heart melts with compassion; 
5 when I see the tomb of the parents themselves, I consider 
the vanity of grieving for those we must quickly follow." 

(I have owned that I do not think Addison's heart melted 
very much, or that he indulged very inordinately in the 
''vanity of grieving.") 

lo ''When," he goes on, "when I see kings lying by those who 
deposed them : when I consider rival wits placed side by side, 
or the holy men that divided the world with their contests 
and disputes — I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on 
the little competitions, factions, and debates of mankind. 

IS And, when I read the several dates on the tombs of some that 
died yesterday, and some six hundred years ago, I consider 
that great day when we shall all of us be contemporaries, and 
make our appearance together." 

Our third humorist comes to speak on the same subject, 
20 You will have observed in the previous extracts the charac- 
teristic humor of each writer — the subject and the contrast — 
the fact of Death, and the play of individual thought by which 
each comments on it, and now hear the third writer — death, 
sorrow, and the grave, being for the moment also his theme. 

25 "The first sense of sorrow I ever knew," Steele says in the 
Taller, "was upon the death of my father, at which time I was 
not quite five years of age : but was rather amazed at what 
all the house meant, than possessed of a real understanding 
why nobody would play with us. I remember I went into 

30 the room where his body lay, and my mother sat weeping 
alone by it. I had my battledore in my hand, and fell a 
beating the cofiin and calling papa ; for, I know not how, I 



STEELE 115 

had some idea that he was locked up there. My mother 
caught me in her arms, and, transported beyond all patience 
of the silent grief she was before in, she almost smothered me 
in her embraces, and told me in a flood of tears, ' Papa could 
not hear me, and would play with me no more : for they were 5 
going to put him under ground, whence he would never come 
to us again.' She was a very beautiful woman, of a noble 
spirit, and there was a dignity in her grief, amidst all the wild- 
ness of her transport, which methought struck me with an 
instinct of sorrow that, before I was sensible what it was to 10 
grieve, seized my very soul, and has made pity the weakness 
of my heart ever since." 

Can there be three more characteristic moods of minds and 
men? "Fools, do you know anything of this mystery?" 
says Swift, stamping on a grave, and carrying his scorn for 15 
mankind actually beyond it. "Miserable purblind wretches, 
how dare you to pretend to comprehend the Inscrutable, and 
how can your dim eyes pierce the unfathomable depths of 
yonder boundless heaven?" Addison, in a much kinder 
language and gentler voice, utters much the same sentiment : 20 
and speaks of the rivalry of wits, and the contests of holy 
men, with the same skeptic placidity. "Look what a little 
vain dust we are," he says, smiling over the tombstones; 
and catching, as is his wont, quite a divine effulgence as he 
looks heavenward, he speaks, in words of inspiration almost, 25 
of "the Great Day, when we shall all of us be contemporaries, 
and make our appearance together." 

The third, whose theme is Death, too, and who will speak 
his word of moral as Heaven teaches him, leads you up to his 
father's coffin, and shows you his beautiful mother weeping, 30 
and himself an unconscious little boy wondering at her side. 
His own natural tears flow as he takes your hand and confid- 
ingly asks your sympathy. "See how good and innocent 



ii6 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

and beautiful women are," he says; "how tender little 
children ! Let us love these and one another, brother — 
God knows we have need of love and pardon." So it is each 
looks with his own eyes, speaks with his own voice, and prays 
5 his own prayer. 

When Steele asks your sympathy for the actors in that charm- 
ing scene of Love and Grief and Death, who can refuse it? 
One yields to it as to the frank advance of a child, or to the 
appeal of a woman. A man is seldom more manly than when 

lo he is what you call unmanned — the source of his emotion 
is championship, pity, and courage ; the instinctive desire to 
cherish those who are innocent and unhappy, and defend those 
who are tender and weak. If Steele is not our friend he is 
nothing. He is by no means the most brilliant of wits nor 

15 the deepest of thinkers : but he is our friend : we love him, 
as children love with an A, because he is amiable. Who likes 
a man best because he is the cleverest or the wisest of man- 
kind ; or a woman because she is the most virtuous, or talks 
French or plays the piano better than the rest of her sex? 

20 1 own to liking Dick Steele the man, and Dick Steele the au- 
thor, much better than much better men and much better 
authors. 

The misfortune regarding Steele is, that m^ost part of the 
company here present must take his amiability upon hearsay, 

25 and certainly can't make his intimate acquaintance. Not 
that Steele was worse than his time; on the contrary, a far 
better, truer, and higher-hearted man than most who lived in 
it. But things were done in that society, and names were 
named, which would make you shudder now. What would 

30 be the sensation of a polite youth of the present day, if at a 
ball he saw the young object of his affections taking a box 
out of her pocket and a pinch of snuff : or if at dinner, by the 
charmer's side, she deliberately put her knife into her mouth ? 
If she cut her mother's throat with it, mamma would scarcely 



STEELE 117 

be more shocked, I allude to these peculiarities of bygone 
times as an excuse for my favorite Steele, who was not worse, 
and often much more delicate, than his neighbors. 

There exists a curious document* descriptive of the man- 
ners of the last age, which describes most minutely the amuse- 5 
ments and occupations of persons of fashion in London at 
the time of which we are speaking; the time of Swift, and 
Addison, and Steele. 

When Lord Sparkish, Tom Neverout, and Colonel Alwit, 
the immortal personages of Swift's polite conversation, came 10 
to breakfast with my Lady Smart, at eleven o'clock in the 
morning, my Lord Smart was absent at the levee. His 
Lordship was at home to dinner at three o'clock to receive 
his guests ; and we may sit down to this meal, like the Barme- 
cide's, and see the fops^of the last century before us. Seven 15 
of them sat down at dinner, and were joined by a country 
baronet who told them they kept Court hours. These per- 
sons of fashion began their dinner with a sirloin of beef, fish, a 
shoulder of veal, and a tongue. My Lady Smart carved the 
sirloin, my Lady Answerall helped the fish, and the gallant 20 
Colonel cut the shoulder of veal. All made a considerable 
inroad on the sirloin and the shoulder of veal with the excep- 
tion of Sir John, who had no appetite, having already partaken 
of a beefsteak and two mugs of ale, besides a tankard of March 
beer as soon as he got out of bed. They drank claret, which 25 
the master of the house said should always be drunk after 
fish ; and my Lord Smart particularly recommended some 
excellent cider to my Lord Sparkish, which occasioned some 
brilliant remarks from that nobleman. When the host called 
for wine, he nodded to one or other of his guests, and said, 30 
"Tom Neverout, my service to you." 

After the first course came almond pudding, fritters, which 
the Colonel took with his hands out of the dish, in order to 

* Swift's "Polite Conversation." 



ii8 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

help the brilliant Miss Notable; chickens, black puddings, 
and soup ; and Lady Smart, the elegant mistress of the man- 
sion, finding a skewer in a dish, placed it in her plate with direc- 
tions that it should be carried down to the cook and dressed 
S for the cook's own dinner. Wine and small beer were drunk 
during the second course; and when the Colonel called for 
beer, he called the butler Friend, and asked whether the beer 
was good. Various jocular remarks passed from the gentle- 
folk to the servants ; at breakfast several persons had a word 

lo and a joke for Mrs. Betty, my Lady's maid, who warmed 
the cream and had charge of the canister (the tea cost thirty 
shillings a pound in those days). When my Lady Sparkish 
sent her footman out to my Lady Match to come at six o'clock 
and play at quadrille, her Ladyship warned the man to follow 

IS his nose, and if he fell by the way not to stay to get up again. 

And when the gentlemen asked the hall porter if his lady was 

at home, that functionary replied, with manly waggishness, 

"She was at home just now, but she's not gone out yet." 

After the puddings, sweet and black, the fritters and soup, 

20 came the third course, of which the chief dish was a hot venison 
pasty, which was put before Lord Smart, and carved by that 
nobleman. Besides the pasty, there was a hare, a rabbit, 
some pigeons, partridges, a goose, and a ham. Beer and wine 
were freely imbibed during this course, the gentlemen always 

25 pledging somebody with every glass which they drank ; 
and by this time the conversation between Tom Neverout 
and Miss Notable had grown so brisk and lively, that the 
Derbyshire baronet began to think the young gentlewoman 
was Tom's sweetheart : on which Miss remarked, that she 

30 loved Tom "like pie." After the goose, some of the gentle- 
women took a dram of brandy, "which was very good for the 
wholesomes," Sir John said : and now having had a tolerably 
substantial dinner, honest Lord Smart bade the butler bring 
up the great tankard full of October to Sir John. The great 



STEELE 119 

tankard was passed from hand to hand and mouth to mouth, 
but when pressed by the noble host upon the gallant Tom 
Neverout, he said, "No, faith, my Lord; I like your wine, 
and won't put a churl upon a gentleman. Your honor's 
claret is good enough for me." And so, the dinner over, the 5 
host said, "Hang saving, bring us up a ha'porth of cheese." 

The cloth was now taken away, and a bottle of burgundy 
was set down, of which the ladies were invited to partake 
before they went to their tea. When they withdrew, the 
gentlemen promised to join them in an hour : fresh bottles 10 
were brought; the "dead men," meaning the empty bottles, 
removed; and "D'you hear, John ! bring clean glasses," my 
Lord Smart said. On which the gallant Colonel Alwit said 
"I'll keep my glass ; for wine is the best liquor to wash glasses 
in." ^ 15 

After an hour the gentlemen joined the ladies, and then they 
all sat and played quadrille until three o'clock in the morning, 
when the chairs and the flambeaux came, and this noble 
company went to bed. 

Such were manners six or seven score years ago. I draw 20 
no inference from this queer picture — let all moralists here 
present deduce their own. Fancy the moral condition of 
that society in which a lady of fashion joked with a footman, 
and carved a sirloin, and provided besides a great shoulder of 
veal, a goose, hare, rabbit, chickens, partridges, black pud- 25 
dings, and a ham for a dinner for eight Christians. What — 
what could have been the condition of that polite world in 
which people openly ate goose after almond pudding, and 
took their soup in the middle of dinner? Fancy a Colonel 
in the Guards putting his hand into a dish of heignets d'abricot 30 
and helping his neighbor, a young lady du monde I Fancy a 
noble lord calling out to the servants, before the ladies at 
his table, "Hang expense, bring us a ha'porth of cheese!" 
Such were the ladies of Saint James's — such were the fre- 



I20 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

quenters of '' White's Chocolate House," when Swift used to 

visit it, and Steele described it as the center of pleasure, 

gallantry, and entertainment, a hundred and forty years ago! 

Dennis, who ran amuck at the literary society of his day, 

5 falls foul of poor Steele, and thus depicts him: — 

" Sir John Edgar, of the county of in Ireland, is of a 

middle stature, broad shoulders, thick legs, a shape like the 
picture of somebody over a farmer's chimney — a short chin, 
a short nose, a short forehead, a broad flat face, and a dusky 

lo countenance. Yet with such a face and such a shape, he 
discovered at sixty that he took himself for a beauty, and 
appeared to be more mortified at being told that he was ugly, 
than he was by any reflection made upon his honor or under- 
standing. 

15 " He is a gentleman born, witness himself, of very honorable 
family; certainly of a very ancient one, for his ancestors 
flourished in Tipperary long before the English ever set foot 
in Ireland. He has testimony of this more authentic than 
the Herald's Office, or any human testimony. For God has 

20 marked him more abundantly than he did Cain, and stamped 
his native country on his face, his understanding, his writings, 
his actions, his passions, and, above all, his vanity. The 
Hibernian brogue is still upon all these, though long habit 
and length of days have worn it off his tongue." * 

25 Although this portrait is the work of a man who was neither 
the friend of Steele nor of any other man alive, yet there is a 

* Steele replied to Dennis in an "Answer to a Whimsical Pamphlet, called 
the Character of Sir John Edgar." What Steele had to say against the cross- 
grained old Critic discovers a great deal of humor : — 

"Thou never didst let the sun into thy garret, for fear he should bring a 
bailiflf along with him. . . . 

"Your years are about sixty-five, an ugly vinegar face, that if you had any 
command you would be obeyed out of fear, from your ill-nature pictured there; 
not from any other motive. Your height is about some five feet five inches. 
You see I can give your exact measure as well as if I had taken your dimension 



STEELE 121 

dreadful resemblance to the original in the savage and exag- 
gerated traits of the caricature, and everybody who knows 
him must recognize Dick Steele. Dick set about almost all 
the undertakings of his life with inadequate means, and, as he 
took and furnished a house with the most generous intentions 5 
towards his friends, the most tender gallantry towards his 
wife, and with this only drawback, that he had not wherewithal 
to pay the rent when quarter day came, — so, in his life he 
proposed to himself the most magnificent schemes of virtue, 
forbearance, public and private good, and the advancement 10 
of his own and the national religion ; but wfien he had to pay 
for these articles — so difficult to purchase and so costly to 
maintain — poor Dick's money was not forthcoming : . and 
when Virtue called with her little bill, Dick made a shuffling 
excuse that he could not see her that morning, having a head- 15 
ache from being tipsy overnight : or when stern Duty rapped 

with a good cudgel, which I promise you to do as soon as ever I have the good 
fortune to meet you. . . . 

"Your doughty paunch stands before you Hke a firkin of butter, and your 
duck legs seem to be cast for carrying burdens. 

"Thy works are libels upon others, and satires upon thyself; and while 
they bark at men of sense, call him fool and knave that wrote them. Thou 
hast a great antipathy to thy own species ; and hatest the sight of a fool but in 
thy glass." 

Steele had been kind to Dennis, and once got arrested on account of a pe- 
cuniary service which he did him. When John heard of the fact — " 'Sdeath ! ' ' 
' cries John ; " why did not he keep out of the way as I did ? " 

The "Answer" concludes by mentioning that Gibber had offered Ten Pounds 
for the discovery of the authorship of Dennis's pamphlet ; on which, says Steele, 
— "I am only sorry he has offered so much, because the twentieth part would 
have overvalued his whole carcase. But I know the fellow that he keeps to 
give answers to his creditors will betray him ; for he gave me his word to bring 
officers on the top of the house that should make a hole through the ceihng of 
his garret, and so bring him to the punishment he deserves. Some people think 
this expedient out of the way, and that he would make his escape upon hearing 
the least noise. I say so too ; but it takes him up half an hour every night to 
fortify himself with his old hair trunk, two or three joint stools, and some other 
lumber, which he ties together with cords so fast that it takes him up the same 
time in the morning to release himself." 



122 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

at the door with his account, Dick was absent and not ready 
to pay. He was shirking at the tavern ; or had some particu- 
lar business (of somebody's else) at the ordinary ; or he was in 
hiding, or, worse than in hiding, in the lockup house. What 
5 a situation for a man ! — for a philanthropist — for a lover of 
right and truth — for a magnificent designer and schemer ! 
Not to dare to look in the face the Religion which he adored 
and which he had offended : to have to shirk down back lanes 
and alleys, so as to avoid the friend whom he loved and who 

lo had trusted him ; to have the house which he had intended 
for his wife, whom he loved passionately, and for her Lady- 
ship's company which he wished to entertain splendidly, in 
the possession of a bailiff's man ; with a crowd of little cred- 
itors — grocers, butchers, and small-coal men — lingering 

15 round the door with their bills and jeering at him. Alas for 
poor Dick Steele ! For nobody else, of course. There is no 
man or woman in our time who makes fine projects and gives 
them up from idleness or want of means. When duty calls 
upon us, we no doubt are always at home and ready to pay 

20 that grim taxgatherer. When we are stricken with remorse 
and promise reform, we keep our promise, and are never 
angry, or idle, or extravagant any more. There are no cham- 
bers in our hearts, destined for family friends and affections, 
and now occupied by some Sin's emissary and bailiff in pos- 

25 session. There are no little sins, shabby peccadilloes, im- 
portunate remembrances, or disappointed holders of our prom- 
ises to reform, hovering at our steps, or knocking at our door ! 
Of course not. We are living in the nineteenth century; 
and poor Dick Steele stumbled and got up again, and got into 

30 jail and out again, and sinned and repented, and loved and 
suffered, and lived and died, scores of years ago. Peace be 
with him ! Let us think gently of one who was so gentle : 
let us speak kindly of one whose own breast exuberated with 
human kindness. 



PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 

Matthew Prior was one of those famous and lucky wits 
of the auspicious reign of Queen Anne, whose name it behooves 
us not to pass over. Mat was a world philosopher of no 
small genius, good nature, and acumen.* He loved, he drank, 

* Gay calls him — "Dear Prior . . . beloved by every muse." — Mr. Pope's 
Welcome from Greece. . 

Swift and Prior were very intimate, and he is frequently mentioned in the 
-'Journal to Stella." "Mr. Prior," says, Swift, "walks to make himself fat, and 
I to keep myself down. . . . We often walk round the park together." 

In Swift's works there is a curious tract called Remarks on the Characters of 
the Court of Queen Anne [Scott's edition, vol. xii.]. The "Remarks" are not 
by the Dean ; but at the end of each is an addition in italics from his hand, and 
these are always characteristic. Thus, to the Duke of Marlborough, he adds 
^^ Detestably covetous,'" &c. Prior is thus noticed — 

"Matthew Prior, Esquire, Commissioner of Trade 

"On the Queen's accession to the throne, he was continued in his office; 
is very well at Court \flth the ministry, and is an entire creature of my Lord 
Jersey's, whom he supports by his advice ; is one of the best poets in England, 
but very facetious in conversation. A thin hollow-looked man, turned of forty 
years old. This is near, the truth." 

V "Yet counting as far as to fifty his years. 

His virtues and vices were as other men's are. 
High hopes he conceived and he smothered great fears, 
In a life party-colored — half pleasure, half care. 

" Not to business a drudge, nor to faction a slave. 
He strove to make interest and freedom agree ; 
In public employments industrious and grave, 

And alone with his friends. Lord, how merry was he 

" Now in equipage stately, now humble on foot, 

Both fortunes he tried, but to neither would trust ; 
And whirled in the round as the wheel turned about, 

He found riches had wings, and knew man was but dust." 

— Prior's Poems. [For my own monument.] 
123 



124 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

he sang. He describes himself, in one of his lyrics, ''in a little 
Dutch chaise on a Saturday night ; on his left hand his Hor- 
ace, and a friend on his right," going out of town from the 
Hague to pass that evening and the ensuing Sunday boozing 

S at a Spielhaus with his companions, perhaps bobbing for 
perch in a Dutch canal, and noting down, in a strain and with 
a grace not unworthy of his Epicurean master, the charms of 
his idleness, his retreat, and his Batavian Chloe. A vintner's 
son* in Whitehall, and a distinguished pupil of Busby of the 

lo Rod, Prior attracted some notice by writing verses at Saint 
John's College, Cambridge, and, coming up to town, aided 
Montague t in an attack on the noble old English Hon John 
Dryden; in ridicule of whose work, ''The Hind and the 
Panther," he brought out that remarkable and famous bur- 

islesque, "The Town and Country Mouse." Aren't you all 
acquainted with it? Have you not all got it by heart? 
What ! have you never heard of it ? See what fame is made 
of ! The wonderful part of the satire was, that, as a natural 
consequence of "The Town and Country Mouse," Matthew 

20 Prior was made Secretary of Embassy at the Hague ! I be- 
lieve it is dancing, rather than singing, which distinguishes 
the young English diplomatists of the present day ; and have 
seen them in various parts perform that part of their duty 
very finely. In Prior's time it appears a different accom- 

2splishment led to preferment.! Could you write a copy of 
Alcaics ? that was the question. Could you turn out a neat 

* [He was a joiner's son. His uncle was a vintner, and kept the Rhenish 
Wine House in Channel (now Cannon) Row, Westminster.] 

t "They joined to produce a parody, entitled The Town and Country Mouse, 
part of which Mr. Bayes is supposed to gratify his old friends, Smart and John- 
son, by repeating to them. The piece is therefore founded upon the twice-told 
jest of the 'Rehearsal.' . . . There is nothing new or original in the idea. . . . 
In this piece, Prior, though the younger man, seems to have had by far the 
largest share." — Scott's Dryden, vol. i. p. 330. 

X [It is doubtful, however, whether Prior's appointment had much to do with 
his literary reputation.] 



PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 125 

epigram or two ? Could you compose ''The Town and Coun- 
try Mouse" ? It is manifest that, by the possession of this 
faculty, the most difficult treaties, the laws of foreign nations, 
and the interests of our own, are easily understood. Prior 
rose in the diplomatic service, and said good things that proved 5 
his sense and his spirit. When the apartments at Versailles 
were shown to him, with the victories of Louis XIV painted 
on the walls, and Prior was asked whether the palace of the 
King of England had any such decorations, ''The monuments 
of my master's actions," Mat said, of William, whom he cor- 10 
dially revered, "are to be seen everywhere except in his own 
house." Bravo, Mat ! Prior rose to be full ambassador at 
Paris,* where he somehow was cheated out of his ambassa- 
dorial plate; arid in an heroic poem, addressed by him to 
her late lamented Majesty, Queen Anne, Mat makes some 15 
magnificent allusions to these dishes and spoons, of which 
Fate had deprived him. All that he wants, he says, is her 
Majesty's picture ; without that he can't be happy. 

"Thee, gracious Anne, thee present I adore : 
Thee, Queen of Peace, if Time and Fate have power 20 

Higher to raise the glories of thy reign. 
In words sublimer and a nobler strain 
May future bards the mighty theme rehearse. 
Here, Stator Jove, and Phoebus, king of verse, 
The votive tablet I suspend." 25 

* "He was to have been in the same commission with the Duke of Shrews- 
bury, but that that nobleman," says Johnson, "refused to be associated with 
one so meanly born. Prior therefore continued to act without a title till the' 
Duke's return next year to England, and then he assumed the style and dignity 
of ambassador." 

He had been thinking of slights of this sort when he wrote his Epitaph: 

"Nobles and heralds, by your leave, 

Here lies what once was Matthew Prior, 
The son of Adam and of Eve : 

Can Bourbon or Nassau claim higher ?" 

But, in this case, the old prejudice got the better of the old joke. 



126 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

, With that word the poem stops abruptly. The votive tablet 
is suspended forever, like Mahomet's coffin. News came that 
the Queen was dead. Stator Jove, and Phoebus, king of verse, 
were left there, hovering to this day, over the votive tablet. 
5 The picture was never got, any more than the spoons and 
dishes : the inspiration ceased, the verses were not wanted — 
the ambassador wasn't wanted. Poor Mat was recalled 
from his embassy, suffered disgrace along with his patrons, 
lived under a sort of cloud ever after, and disappeared in 

lo Essex. When deprived of all his pensions and emoluments, 
the hearty and generous Oxford pensioned him.* They 
played for gallant stakes — the bold men of those days — 
and lived and gave splendidly. 

Johnson quotes from Spence a legend, that Prior, after 

15 spending an evening with Harley, St. John, Pope, and Swift, 
would go off and smoke a pipe with a couple of friends of his, a 
soldier and his wife, in Long Acre. Those who have not read 
his late Excellency's poems should be warned that they smack 
not a little of the conversation of his Long Acre friends. 

20 Johnson speaks slightingly of his lyrics ; but with due defer- 
ence to the great Samuel, Prior's seem to me amongst the 
easiest, the richest, the most charmingly humorous of Eng- 
lish lyrical poems.f Horace is always in his mind; and his 

* [Prior's poems published (in folio) by subscription brought him £4000. 
Lord Harley (not his father, the Earl of Oxford) added £4000 to this for the 
purchase of an estate (Down Hall) in Essex.] 

t His epigrams have the genuine sparkle : 

The Remedy worse than the Disease 

"I sent for Radcliff ; was so ill, 

That other doctors gave me over : 
He felt my pulse, prescribed his pill, 
And I was likely to recover. 

"But when the wit began to wheeze. 

And wine had warmed the poHtician, 



PRIOR/GAY, AND POPE 127 

song, and his philosophy, his good sense, his happy easy turns 
and melody, his loves and his Epicureanism bear a great 
resemblance to that most delightful and accomplished master. 
In reading his works one is struck with their modern air, as 
well as by their happy similarity to the songs of the charming s 
owner of the Sabine farm. In his verses addressed to Halifax, 
he says, writing of that endless theme to poets, the vanity of 
human wishes — 

"So whilst in fevered dreams we sink, 

And waking, taste what we desire, 10 

The real draught but feeds the fire. 
The dream is better than the drink. 

Our hopes like towering falcons aim 

At objects in an airy height : 

To stand aloof and view the flight, 15 

Is all the pleasure of the game." 

Would not you fancy that a poet of our own days * was 

Cured yesterday of my disease, 

I died last night of my physician." 



"Yes, every poet is a fool; 

By demonstration Ned can show it ; 
Happy could Ned's inverted rule 
Prove every fool to be a poet." ... 



"On his deathbed poor Lubin lies, 
His spouse is in despair ; 
j With frequent sobs and mutual cries 

1 They both express their care. 

" ' A different cause,' says Parson Sly, 

' The same effect may give ; 

Poor Lubin fears that he shall die. 

His wife that he may live.'" 

* [Thackeray, however, has ingeniously transposed the order of these verses, 
which, in the original, are not in the meter made familiar by a poet of our own 
days.] 



128 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

singing? and in the verses of Chloe weeping and reproaching 
him for his inconstancy, where he says — 

"The God of us versemen, you know, child, the Sun, 
How, after his journeys, he sets up his rest. 
5 If at morning o'er earth 'tis his fancy to run, 

At night he decHnes on his Thetis's breast. 

" So, when I am wearied with wandering all day, 
To thee, my delight, in the evening I come : 
No matter what beauties I saw in my way, 
lo They were but my visits, but thou art my home ! 

" Then finish, dear Chloe, this pastoral war. 
And let us like Horace and Lydia agree : 
For thou art a girl as much brighter than her, 
As he was a poet sublimer than me." 

IS If Prior read Horace, did not Thomas Moore study Prior ? 
Love and pleasure find singers in all days. Roses are always 
blowing and fading — to-day as in that pretty time when 
Prior sang of them, and of Chloe lamenting their decay — 

" She sighed., she smiled, and to the flowers 
20 Pointing, the lovely moralist said : 

See, friend, in some few fleeting hours, 
See yonder what a change is made ! 

" Ah me ! the blooming pride of May 
And that of Beauty are but one : 
25 At morn both flourish, bright and gay. 

Both fade at evening, pale and gone. 

" At dawn poor Stella danced and sung, 
The amorous youth around her bowed : 
At night her fatal knell was rung ; 
30 I saw, and kissed her in her shroud. 

" Such as she is who died to-day. 
Such I, alas, may be to-morrow : 
Go, Damon, bid thy Muse display 
The justice of thy Chloe's sorrow." 



PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 129 



V 



Damon's knell was rung in 1721. May his turf lie lightly 
on him! "Deus sit propitius huic potatori," as Walter de / 
Mapes sang.* Perhaps Samuel Johnson, who spoke slight- / 

* Prior to Sir Thomas Hanmer 

"Aug. 4, 1709 
"Dear Sir, — Friendship may live, I grant you, without being fed and 
cherished by correspondence; but with that additional benefit I am of opinion 
it will look more cheerful and thrive better : for in this case, as in love, though 
a man is sure of his own constancy, yet his happiness depends a good deal upon 
the sentiments of another, and while you and Chole are alive, 'tis not enough 
that I love you both, except I am sure you both love me again; and as one 
of her scrawls fortifies my mind more against affliction than all Epictetus, with 
Simplicius's comments into the bargain, so your single letter gave me more 
real pleasure than all the works of Plato. ... I must return my answer to 
your very kind question concerning my health. The Bath waters have done 
a good deal towards the recovery of it, and the great specific. Cape caballum, 
will, I think, confirm it. Upon this head I must tell you that my mare Betty 
grows blind, and may one day, by breaking my neck, perfect my cure: if at 
-Rixham fair any pretty nagg that is between thirteen and fourteen hands pre- 
sented himself, and you would be pleased to purchase him for me, one of your 
servants might ride him to Euston, and I might receive him there. This, sir, 
is just as such a thing happens. If you hear, too, of a Welch widow, with a good 
jointure, that has her goings and is not very skittish, pray be pleased to cast your 
eye on her for me too. You see, sir, the great trust I repose in your skill and 
, honor, when I dare put two such commissions in your hand. ..." The Han- 
mer Correspondence, p. 120. 

From Mr. Prior 

"Paris: ist-i2th May, i^ji^ 
"My DEAR Lord and Friend, — Matthew never had so great occasion to 
write a word to Henry as now : it is noised here that I am soon to return. The 
question that I wish I could answer to the many that ask, and to our friend 
Colbert de Torcy (to whom I made your compliments in the manner you com- 
manded) is, what is done for me; and to what I am recalled? It may look . 
Hke a bagatelle, what is to become of a philosopher like me ? but it is not such : 
what is to become of a person who had the honor to be chosen, and sent hither 
as intrusted, in the midst of a war, with what the Queen designed should make 
the peace; returning with the Lord BoHngbroke, one of the greatest men in 
England, and one of the finest heads in Europe (as they say here, if true or not, 
n'importe) ; having been left by him in the greatest character (that of . her 
Majesty's Plenipotentiary), exercising that power conjointly with the Duke of 
Shrewsbury, and solely after his departure; having here received more dis- 
tinguished honor than any Minister, except an Ambassador, ever did, and some 
which were never given to any but who had that character ; having had all the 



I30 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

ingly of Prior's verses, enjoyed them more than he was wilHng 
to own. The old moralist had studied them as well as Mr. 
Thomas Moore, and defended them and showed that he re- 
success that could be exp)ected ; having (God be thanked !) spared no pains, at 
a time when at home the peace is voted safe and honorable — at a time v/hen 
the Earl of Oxford is Lord Treasurer and Lord Bolingbroke First Secretary of 
State ? This unfortunate person, I say, neglected, forgot, unnamed to anything 
that may speak the Queen satisfied with his services, or his friends concerned 
as to his fortune. 

"Mr. de Torcy put me quite out of countenance, the other day, by a pity 
that wounded me deeper than ever did the cruelty of the late Lord Godolphin. 
He said he would write to Robin and Harry about me. God forbid, my Lord, 
that I should need any foreign intercession, or owe the least to any Frenchman 
living, besides the decency of behavior and the returns of common civility: 
some say I am to go to Baden, others that I am to be added to the Commis- 
sioners for settling the commerce. In all cases I am ready, but in the mean- 
time, die aliquid de tribus capellis. Neither of these two are, I presume, honors 
or rewards, neither of them (let me say to my dear Lord BoUngbroke, and let him 
not be angry with me) are what Drift may aspire to, and what Mr. Whitworth, 
who was his fellow-clerk, has or may possess. I am far from desiring to lessen 
the great merit of the gentleman I named, for I heartily esteem and love him ; 
but in this trade of ours, my Lord, in which you are the general, as in that of 
the soldiery, there is a certain right acquired by time and long service. You 
would do anything for your Queen's service, but you would not be contented 
to descend, and be degraded to a charge, no way proportioned to that of Secre- 
tary of State, any more than Mr. Ross, though he would charge a party with a 
halbard in his hand, would be content all his life after to be Serjeant. Was my 
Lord Dartmouth, from Secretary, returned again to be Commissioner of Trade, 
or from Secretary of War, would Frank Gwyn think himself kindly used to be 
returned again to be Commissioner ? In short,my Lord, you have put me above 
myself, and if I am to return to myself, I shall return to something very dis- 
contented and uneasy. I am sure, my Lord, you will make the best use you can 
of this hint for my good. If I am to have anything, it will certainly be for her 
Majesty's service, and the credit of my friends in the Ministry, that it be done 
before I am recalled from home, lest the world may think either that I have 
merited to be disgraced, or that ye dare not stand by me. If nothing is to be 
done, fiat voluntas Dei. 1 have writ to Lord Treasurer upon this subject, and 
having implored your kind intercession, I promise you it is the last remonstrance 
of this kind that I will ever make. Adieu, my Lord, all honor, health, and pleasure 
to you. 

"Yours ever, Matt 

" P.5. — Lady Jersey is just gone from me. We drank your healths together 
in usquebaugh after our tea : we are the greatest friends alive. Once more adieu. 
There is no such thing as the 'Book of Travels' you mentioned; if there be, 



PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 131 

membered them very well too, on an occasion when their 
morality was called in question by that noted puritan, James 
Boswell, Esquire, of Auchinleck.* 

In the great society of the wits, John Gay deserved to be a 
favorite, and to have a good placet In his set all were fond s 
of him. His success offended nobody. He missed a fortune 
once or twice. He was talked of for Court favor, and hoped 
to win it ; but the Court favor jilted him. Craggs gave him 
some South Sea stock ; and at one time Gay had very nearly 
made his fortune. But Fortune shook her swift wings and 10 
jilted him too : and so his friends, instead of being angry with 

let friend Tilson send us more particular account of them, for neither I nor 
Jacob Tonson can find them. Pray send Barton back to me, I hope with some 
comfortable tidings." — Bolingbroke's Letters. 

*"I asked whether Prior's poems were to be printed entire; Johnson said 
they were. I mentioned Lord Hales's censure of Prior in his preface to a col- 
lection of sacred poems, by various hands, published by him at Edinburgh a 
great many years ago, where he mentions 'these impure tales, which will be 
the eternal opprobrium of their ingenious author.' Johnson: 'Sir, Lord Hales 
has forgot. There is nothing in Prior that will excite to lewdness. If Lord 
Hales thinks there is, he must be more combustible than other people.' I 
instanced the tale of 'Paulo Purganti and his wife.' Johnson: 'Sir, there is 
nothing there but that his wife wanted to be kissed, when poor Paulo was out 
of pocket. No, sir. Prior is a lady's book. No lady is ashamed to have it stand- 
ing in her library." — Boswell's Life of Johnson. 

t Gay was of an old Devonshire family, but his pecuniary prospects not 
being great, was placed in his youth in the house of a silk-mercer in London. 
He was born in 1688 — Pope's year [It has been lately shown that Gay was born 
in 1685], and in 171 2 the Duchess of Monmouth made him her secretary. Next 
year he published his Rural Sports, which he dedicated to Pope, and so made 
an acquaintance which became a memorable friendship. 

" Gay," says Pope, "was quite a natural man, — wholly without art or design, 
and spoke just what he thought and as he thought it. He dangled for twenty 
years about a Court, and at last was offered to be made usher to the young 
princesses. Secretary Craggs made Gay a present of stock in the South Sea 
year; and he was once worth £20,000, but lost it all again. He got about £400 
by the first 'Beggar's Opera,' and £1100 or £1200 by the second. He was 
negligent and a bad manager. Latterly, the Duke of Queensberry took his 
money into his keeping, and let him only have what was necessary out of it, 
and, as he lived with them, he could not have occasion for much. He died 
worth upwards of £3000." — Pope. Spence's Anecdotes. 



132 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

him, and jealous of him, were kind and fond of honest Gay. 
In the portraits of the Kterary worthies of the early part of 
the last century. Gay's face is the pleasantest perhaps of. all. 
It appears adorned with neither periwig nor nightcap (the 
5 full dress and neglige of learning, without which the painters 
of those days scarcely ever portrayed wits), and he laughs at 
you over his shoulder with an honest boyish glee — an artless 
sweet humor. He was so kind, so gentle, so jocular, so de- 
Ughtfully brisk at times, so dismally woebegone at others, 

lo such a natural good creature, that the Giants loved him. 
The great Swift was gentle and sportive with him,* as the 
enormous Brobdingnag maids of honor were with little 
Gulliver. He could frisk and fondle round Pope,t and sport, 
and bark, and caper, without offending the most thin-skinned 

IS of poets and men ; and when he was jilted in that little Court 
affair of which we have spoken, his warm-hearted patrons 
the Duke and Duchess of QueensberryJ (the "Klitty, beauti- 

* "Mr. Gay is, in all regards, as honest and sincere a man as ever I knew." 
— Swift, To Lady Betty Germaine, Jan. 1733. 

t " Of manners gentle, of affections mild ; 
In wit a man ; simplicity, a child ; 
With native humor temp'ring virtuous rage, 
Form'd to deUght at once and lash the age ; 
Above temptation in a low estate, 
And vmcorrupted e'en among the great : 
A safe companion, and an easy friend, 
Unblamed through life, lamented in thy end. 
These are thy honors ; not that here thy bust 
Is mixed with heroes, or with kings thy dust; 
But that the worthy and the good shall say, 
Striking their pensive bosoms, ^Here lies Gay.'" 

— Pope's Epitaph on Gay. 

"A hare who in a civil way, 
Complied with everything, like Gay." 

— Fables, " The Hare and many Friends." 

t "I can give you no account of Gay," says Pope curiously, "since he was 

raffled for, and won back by his Duchess." — Works, Roscoe's ed., vol. ix. p. 392, 

Here is the letter Pope wrote to him when the death of Queen Anne brought 



PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE I33 

ful and young," of Prior) pleaded his cause with indignation, 
and quitted the Court in a huff, carrying off with them into 

back Lord Clarendon from Hanover, and lost him the Secretaryship of that 
nobleman, of which he had had but a short tenure. 

Gay's Court prospects were never happy from this time. — His dedication of 
the Shepherd's Week to Bolingbroke, Swift used to call the "original sin" which 
had hurt him with the house of Hanover : 

"Sept. 23, 1 7 14 

"Dear Mr. Gay, — Welcome to your native soil ! welcome to your friends ! 
thrice welcome to me ! whether returned in glory, blest with Court interest, the 
love and familiarity of the great, and filled with agreeable hopes ; or melancholy 
with dejection, contemplative of the changes of fortune, and doubtful for the 
future; whether returned a triumphant Whig, or a desponding Tory, equally 
all hail ! equally beloved and welcome to me ! If happy, I am to partake in 
your elevation; if unhappy, you have still a warm corner in my heart, and a 
retreat at Binfield in the worst of times at your service. If you are a Tory, or 
thought so by any man, I know it can proceed from nothing but your gratitude 
to a few people who endeavored to serve you, and whose politics were never 
your concern. If you are a Whig, as I rather hope, and as I think your principles 
and mine (as brother poets) had ever a bias to the side of liberty, I know you 
will be an honest man and an inoffensive one. Upon the whole, I know you are 
incapable of being so much of either party as to be good for nothing. Therefore, 
once more, whatever you are or in whatever state you are, all hail ! 

"One or two of your own friends complained they had heard nothing from you 
since the Queen's death ; I told them no man living loved Mr. Gay better than 
I, yet I had not once written to him in all his voyage. This I thought a con- 
vincing proof how truly one may be a friend to another without telling him so 
every month. But they had reasons, too, themselves to allege in your excuse, 
as men who really value one another will never want such as make their friends 
and themselves easy. The late universal concern in public affairs threw us all 
into a hurry of spirits : even I, who am more a philosopher than to expect any- 
thing from any reign, was borne away with the current, and full of the expecta- 
tion of the successor. During your journeys, I knew not whither to aim a letter 
after you ; that was a sort of shooting flying : add to this the demand Homer 
had upon me, to write fifty verses a day, besides learned notes, all which are 
at a conclusion for this year. Rejoice with me, O my friend ! that my labor is 
over; come and make merry with me in much feasting. We will feed among 
the lilies (by the lilies I mean the ladies). Are not the Rosahndas of Britain 
as charming as the Blousalindas of the Hague ? or have the two great Pastoral 
poets of our nation renounced love at the same time? for Philips, immortal 
Philips, hath deserted, yea, and in a rustic manner kicked his Rosalind. Dr. 
Parnell and I have been inseparable ever since you went. We are now at the 
Bath, where (if you are not, as I heartily hope, better engaged) your coming 
would be the greatest pleasure to us in the world. Talk not of expenses : Homer 



134 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

their retirement their kind gentle protege. With these kind 
lordly folks, a real Duke and Duchess, as delightful as those 
who harbored Don Quixote, and loved that dear old Sancho, 
Gay lived, and was lapped in cotton, and had his plate of 
5 chicken, and his saucer of cream, and frisked, and barked, 
and wheezed, and grew fat, and so ended.* He became very 
melancholy and lazy, sadly plethoric, and only occasionally 
diverting in his latter days. But everybody loved him, and 
the remembrance of his pretty little tricks; and the raging 
loold Dean of Saint Patrick's, chafing in his banishment, was 
afraid to open the letter which Pope wrote him announcing 
the sad news of the death of Gay.f 

shall support his children. I beg a line from you, directed to the Post-house in 
Bath. Poor Parnell is in an ill state of health. 

"Pardon me if I add a word of advice in the poetical way. Write something 
on the King, or Prince, or Princess. On whatsoever foot you may be with the 
Court, this can do no harm. I shall never know where to end, and am con- 
founded in the many things I have to say to you, though they all amount but 

to this, that I am, entirely, as ever, ,, ,, „ 

Your, &c. 

Gay took the advice "in the poetical way," and published "An Epistle to 
a Lady, occasioned by the arrival of her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales." 
But though this brought him access to Court, and the attendance of the Prince 
and Princess at his farce of the "What d'ye call it?" it did not bring him 
a place. On the accession of George II he was offered the situation of Gentle- 
man Usher to the Princess Louisa (her Highness being then two years old) ; 
but "by this offer," says Johnson, "he thought himself insulted." 

* " Gay was a great eater. — • As the French philosopher used to prove his 
existence by Cogito, ergo sum, the greatest proof of Gay's existence is, Edit, 
ergo est." — Congreve, in a letter to Pope. Spence's Anecdotes. 

t Swift indorsed the letter — "On my dear friend Mr. Gay's death; received 
Dec. 15, but not read till the 20th, by an impulse foreboding some misfortune." 

"It was by Swift's interest that Gay was made known to Lord Bolingbroke, 
and obtained his patronage." — Scott's Swift, vol. i. p. 156. 

Pope wrote on the occasion of Gay's death, to Swift, thus : — 

"[Dec. 5, 1732] 
"... One of the nearest and longest ties I have ever had is broken all on 
a sudden by the unexpected death of poor Mr. Gay. An inflammatory fever 
hurried him out of this life in three days. . . . He asked of you a few hours 
before when in acute torment by the inflammation in his bowels and breast. . . . 
His sisters, we suppose, will be his heirs, who are two widows Good God ! 



PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 135 

Swift's letters to him are beautiful ; and having no purpose 
but kindness in writing to him, no party aim to advocate, or 
slight or anger to wreak, every word the Dean says to his 
favorite is natural, trustworthy, and kindly. His admiration 
for Gay's parts and honesty, and his laughter at his weak- s 
nesses, were alike just and genuine. He paints his character 
in wonderful pleasant traits of jocular satire. "I writ lately 
to Mr. Pope," Swift says, writing to Gay : "I wish you had a 
little villakin in his neighborhood ; but you are yet too vola- 
tile, and any lady with a coach and six horses would carry 10 
you to Japan." "If your ramble," says Swift, in another 
letter, "was on horseback, I am glad of it, on account of your 
health; but I know your arts of patching up a journey be- 
tween stagecoaches and friends' coaches — for you are as 
arrant a cockney as any hosier in Cheapside. I have often 15 
had it in my head to put it into yours, that you ought to have 
some great work in scheme, which may take up seven years 
to finish, besides two or three under-ones that may add 
another thousand pounds to your stock. And then I shall 
be in less pain about you. I know you can find dinners, but 20 
you love twelvepenny coaches too well, without considering 
that the interest of a whole thousand pounds brings you but 
half a crown a day." And then Swift goes off from Gay to 
pay some grand compliments to her Grace the Duchess of 
Queensberry, in whose sunshine Mr. Gay was basking, and 25 
in whose radiance the Dean would have liked to warm him- 
self too. 

But we have Gay here before us, in these letters — lazy, 
kindly, uncommonly idle; rather slovenly, I'm afraid; for- 
ever eating and saying good things ; a little round French 30 
abbe of a man, sleek, soft-handed, and soft-hearted. 

how often are we to die before we go quite off this stage ? In every friend we 
lose a part of ourselves, and the best part. God keep those we have left ! few 
are worth praying for, and oneself the least of all." 



136 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

Our object in these lectures is rather to describe the men 
than their works ; or to deal with the latter only in as far as 
they seem to illustrate the character of their writers. Mr. 
Gay's ''Fables," which were written to benefit that amiable 
5 Prince the Duke of Cumberland, the warrior of Dettingen 
and Culloden, I have not, I own, been able to peruse since a 
period of very early youth; and it must be confessed that 
they did not effect much benefit upon the illustrious young 
Prince, whose manners they were intended to mollify, and 

10 whose natural ferocity our gentle-hearted Satirist perhaps 
proposed to restrain. But the six pastorals called the 
"Shepherd's Week," and the burlesque poem of "Trivia," 
any man fond of lazy literature will find delightful at the 
present day, and must read from beginning to end with pleas- 

15 ure. They are to poetry what charming little Dresden china 
figures are to sculpture : graceful, minikin, fantastic ; with a 
certain beauty always accompanying them. The pretty little 
personages of the pastoral, with gold clocks to their stockings, 
and fresh satin ribbons to their crooks and waistcoats and 

20 bodices, danced their loves to a minuet tune played on a 
bird organ, approach the charmer, or rush from the false one 
daintily on their red-heeled tiptoes, and die of despair or 
rapture, with the most pathetic little grins and ogles; or 
repose, simpering at each other, under an arbor of pea-green 

25 crockery ; or piping to pretty flocks that have just been washed 
with the best Naples in a stream of bergamot. Gay's gay 
plan seems to me far pleasanter than that of Philips — his 
rival and Pope's — a serious and dreary idyllic cockney ; 
not that Gay's "Bumkinets" and "Hobnelias" are a whit 

30 more natural than the would-be serious characters of the other 
posture-masjter ; but the quality of this true humorist was to 
laugh and make laugh, though always with a secret kindness 
and tenderness, to perform the drollest little antics and capers, 
but always with a certain grace, and to sweet music — as you 



PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE i37 

may have seen a Savoyard boy abroad, with a hurdy-gurdy 
and a monkey, turning over head and heels, or clattering and 
pirouetting in a pair of wooden shoes, yet always with a look of 
love and appeal in his bright eyes, and a smile that asks and 
wins affection and protection. Happy they who have that 5 
sweet gift of nature ! It was this which made the great folk 
and Court ladies free and friendly with John Gay — which 
made Pope and Arbuthnot love him — which melted the sav- 
age heart of Swift when he thought of him — and drove 
away, for a moment or two, the dark frenzies which obscured lo 
the lonely tyrant's brain, as he heard Gay's voice with its 
simple melody and artless ringing laughter. 

What used to be said about Rubini,* quHl avail des 
larmes dans la voix, may be said of Gay,t and of one other 
humorist of whom we shall have to speak. In almost 15 
every ballad of his, however slight,! in the "Beggar's 

* [This was said earlier of Mdlle. Duchesnois of the Theatre Frangais, who 
was not beautiful, but had a most beautiful voice.] 

t "Gay, Uke Goldsmith, had a musical talent. 'He could play on the flute,' 
says Malone, ' and was, therefore, enabled to adapt so happily some of the airs 
in the Beggar's Opera.' " — Notes to Spence. 

t " 'Twas when the seas were roaring 

With hollow blasts of wind, 
A damsel lay deploring 

All on a rock recUned. 
Wide o'er the foaming billows 

She cast a wistful look ; 
Her head was crown'd with willows 

That trembled o'er the brook. 

" ' Twelve months are gone and over, 

And nine long tedious days ; 
Why didst thou, venturous iover — 

Why didst thou trust the seas ? 
Cease, cease, thou cruel Ocean, 

And let my lover rest ; 
Ah ! what's thy troubled motion 

To that within my breast ? 



138 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

Opera"* and in its wearisome continuation (where the 
verses are to the full as pretty as in the first piece, how- 
ever), there is a peculiar, hinted, pathetic sweetness and 

"'The merchant, robb'd of pleasure, 

Sees tempests in despair ; 
But what's the loss of treasure 

To losing of my dear ? 
Should you some coast be laid on. 

Where gold and diamonds grow. 
You'd find a richer maiden, 

But none that loves you so. 

'"How can they say that Nature 

Has nothing made in vain ; 
Why, then, beneath the water 

Should hideous rocks remain ? 
No eyes the rocks discover 

That lurk beneath the deep, 
To wreck the wandering lover, 

And leave the maid to weep ? ' 

" All melancholy lying. 

Thus wailed she for her dear ; 
Repay'd each blast with sighing, 

Each billow with a tear ; 
When o'er the white wave stooping. 

His floating corpse she spy'd ; 
Then like a lily drooping. 

She bow'd her head, and died." 

— A Ballad from the "What d'ye call it?" 

"What can be prettier than Gay's ballad, or, rather, Swift's, Arbuthnot's, 
Pope's, and Gay's, in the 'What d'ye call it ?' ' 'Twas when the seas were roar- 
ing'? I have been well informed that they all contributed." — Cow per to 
Unwin, 1783. 

* "Dr. Swift had been observing once to Mr. Gay, what an odd pretty sort 
of thing a Newgate Pastoral might make. Gay was inclined to try at such a 
thing for some time, but afterwards thought it would be better to write a comedy 
on the same plan. This was what gave rise to the Beggar's Opera. He began 
on it, and when he first mentioned it to Swift, the Doctor did not much like the 
project. As he carried it on, he showed what he wrote to both of us; and we 
now and then gave a correction, or a word or two of advice ; but it was wholly 
of his own writing. When it was done, neither of us thought it would succeed. 
We showed it to Congreve, who, after reading it over, said, 'It would either 
take greatly, or be damned confoundedly.' We were all at the first night of it, 



PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 139 

melody. It charms and melts you. It's indefinable, but 
it exists; and is the property of John Gay's and Oliver 
Goldsmith's best verse as fragrance is of a violet, or fresh- 
ness of a rose. 

Let me read a piece from one of his letters, which is so 5 
famous that most people here are no doubt familiar with it, 
but so delightful that it is always pleasant to hear : — 

"I have just passed part of this summer at an old romantic 
seat of my Lord Harcourt's which he lent me. It overlooks a 
common field, where, under the shade of a haycock, sat two 10 
lovers as constant as ever were found in romance — beneath 
a spreading beech. The name of the one (let it sound as it 
will) was John Hewet ; of the other Sarah Drew. John was a 
well-set man, about five-and-twenty ; Sarah a brown woman 
of eighteen. John had for several months borne the labor of 15 
the day in the same field with Sarah ; when she milked, it was 
his morning and evening charge to bring the cows to her pail. 
Their love was the talk, but not the scandal, of the whole 
neighborhood, for all they aimed at was the blameless pos- 
session of each other in marriage. It was but this very morn- 20 
ing that he had obtained her parents' consent, and it was but 
till the next week that they were to wait to be happy. Per- 
haps this very day, in the intervals of their work, they were 
talking of their wedding clothes ; and John was now matching 
several kinds of poppies and field flowers to her complexion, 25 
to make her a present of knots for the day. While they were 
thus employed (it was on the last of July) a terrible storm of 

in great uncertainty of the event, till we were very much encouraged by over- 
hearing the Duke of Argyle, who sat in the next box to us, say, 'It will do — 
it must do ! — I see it in the eyes of them ! ' This was a good while before the 
first act was over, and so gave us ease soon; for the Duke [besides his own 
good taste] has a more particular knack than any one now living in discovering 
the taste of the pubhc. He was quite right in this as usual ; the good nature 
of the audience appeared stronger and stronger every act, and ended in a clamor 
of applause." — Pope. Spence's Anecdotes. 



I40 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

thunder and lightning arose, that drove the laborers to what 
shelter the trees or hedges afforded. Sarah, frightened and 
out of breath, sunk on a haycock ; and John (who never sepa- 
rated from her), sat by her side, having raked two or three 
5 heaps together, to secure her. Immediately there was heard 
so loud a crack, as if heaven had burst asunder. The la- 
borers, all solicitous for each other's safety, called to one 
another : those that were nearest our lovers, hearing no an- 
swer, stepped to the place where they lay : they first saw a 

lo little smoke, and after, this faithful pair — John, with one 
arm about his Sarah's neck, and the other held over her face, 
as if to screen her from the lightning. They were struck dead, 
and already grown stiff and cold in this tender posture. There 
was no mark or discoloring on their bodies — only that 

15 Sarah's eyebrow was a little singed, and a small spot be- 
tween her breasts. They were buried the next day in one 
grave." 

And the proof that this description is delightful and beauti- 
ful is, that the great Mr. Pope admired it so much that he 
20 thought proper to steal it and to send it off to a certain lady 
and wit, with whom he pretended to be in love in those days — 
my Lord Duke of Kingston's daughter, and married to Mr. 
Wortley Montagu, then his Majesty's Ambassador at Con- 
stantinople.* 

25 We are now come to the greatest name on our list — the 
highest among the poets, the highest among the English wits 
and humorists with whom we have to rank him. If the au- 
thor of the ''Dunciad" be not a humorist, if the poet of the 

* [This was a natural conjecture, but now appears to be erroneous. The 
letter seems to have been a joint composition of Gay and Pope, who were stay- 
ing together at Lord Harcourt's house. Gay wrote to Fortescue, while Pope 
sent substantially the same letter to Martha Blount, Lord Bathurst, and Lady 
Mary Wortley Montagu. — See Mr. Courthope's notes in Pope's Works, vol. 
ix., 284, 399.] 



PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 141 

" Rape of the Lock " be not a wit, who deserves to be called so ? 
Besides that brilliant genius and immense fame, for both of 
which we should respect him, men of letters should admire 
him as being the greatest literary artist that England has 
seen. He polished, he refined, he thought ; he took thoughts 5 
from other works to adorn and complete his own ; borrowing 
an idea or a cadence from another poet as he would a figure 
or a simile from a flower, or a river, stream, or any object 
which struck him in his walk, or contemplation of nature. He 
began to imitate at an early age ;* and taught himself to 10 
write by copying printed books. Then he passed into the 
hands of the priests, and from his first clerical master, who 
came to him when he was eight years old, he went to a school 
at Twyford, and another school at Hyde Park, at which places 
he unlearned all that he had got from his first instructor. At 15 
twelve years old, he went with his father into Windsor For- 

* "Waller, Spenser, and Dryden were Mr. Pope's great favorites, in the 
order they are named, in his first reading, till he was about twelve years old." 

— Pope. S pence's Anecdotes. 

"Mr. Pope's father (who was an honest merchant, and dealt in hoUands, 
wholesale) was no poet, but he used to set him to make English verses when 
very young. He was pretty difficult in being pleased; and used often to send 
him back to new turn them. 'These are not good rhimes;' for that was my 
husband's word for verses." — Pope's Mother. Spence. 

"I wrote things, I'm ashamed to say how soon. Part of an Epic Poem when 
about twelve. The scene of it lay at Rhodes and some of the neighboring islands ; 
and the poem opened under water with a description of the Court of Neptune." 

— Pope. Ibid. 

"His perpetual application (after he set to study of himself) reduced him in 
four years' time to so bad a state of health, that, after trying physicians for a 
good while in vain, he resolved to give way to his distemper; and sat down 
calmly in a full expectation of death in a short time. Under this thought, he 
wrote letters to take a last farewell of some of his more particular friends, and, 
among the rest, one to the Abbe Southcote. The Abbe was extremely con- 
cerned both for his very ill state of health and the resolution he said he had 
taken. He thought there might yet be hope, and went immediately to Dr. 
Radcliffe, with whom he was well acquainted, told him Mr. Pope's case, got 
full directions from him, and carried them down to Pope in Windsor Forest. 
The chief thing the Doctor ordered him was to apply less, and to ride every day. 
The following his advice soon restored him to his health." — Pope. Spence. 



142 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

est, and there learned for a few months under a fourth priest. 
"And this was all the teaching I ever had," he said, "and God 
knows it extended a very little way." 

When he had done with his priests he took to reading by 
5 himself, for which he had a very great eagerness and enthu- 
siasm, especially for poetry. He learnt versification from 
Dryden, he said. In his youthful poem of "Alcander," he 
imitated every poet, Cowley, Milton, Spenser, Statins, 
Homer, Virgil. In a few years he had dipped into a great 

lo number of the English, French, Italian, Latin, and Greek 
poets. "This I did," he says, "without any design, except 
to amuse myself; and got the languages by hunting after 
the stories in the several poets I read, rather than read the 
books to get the languages. I followed everywhere as my 

15 fancy led me, and was like a boy gathering flowers in the 
fields and woods, just as they fell in his way. These five or 
six years I looked upon as the happiest in my life." Is not 
here a beautiful holiday picture? The forest and the fairy 
storybook — the boy spelling Ariosto or Virgil under the 

20 trees, battling with the Cid for the love of Chimene, or dream- 
ing of Armida's garden — peace and sunshine round about — 
the kindest love and tenderness waiting for him at his quiet 
home yonder — and Genius throbbing in his young heart, 
and whispering to him, "You shall be great, you shall be 

25 famous ; you too shall love and sing ; you will sing her so 
nobly that some kind heart shall forget you are weak and ill 
formed. Every poet had a love. Fate must give one to you 
too," — and day by day he walks the forest, very likely look- 
ing out for that charmer. "They were the happiest days of 

30 his life," he says, when he was only dreaming of his fame: 
when he had gained that mistress she was no consoler. 

That charmer made her appearance, it would seem, about 
the year 1705, when Pope was seventeen. Letters of his 
are extant, addressed to a certain Lady M •, whom the 



PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 143 

youth courted, and to whom he expressed his ardor in lan- 
guage, to say no worse of it, that is entirely pert, odious, and 
affected. He imitated love compositions as he had been 
imitating love poems just before — it was a sham mistress 
he courted, and a sham passion, expressed as became it. 5 
These unlucky letters found their way into print years after- 
wards, and were sold to the congenial Mr. Curll. If any of 
my hearers, as I hope they may, should take a fancy to look 
at Pope's correspondence, let them pass over that first part 
of it ; over, perhaps, almost all Pope's letters to women ; in 10 
which there is a tone of not pleasant gallantry, and, amidst 
a profusion of compliments and politenesses, a something 
which makes one distrust the little pert, prurient bard. There 
is very little indeed to say about his loves, and that little not 
edifying.. He wrote flames and raptures and elaborate verse 15 
and prose for Lady Mary Wortley Montagu ; but that pas- 
sion probably came to a cHmax in an impertinence, and was 
extinguished by a box on the ear, or some such rebuff, and 
he began on a sudden to hate her with a fervor much more 
genuine than that of his love had been. It was a feeble puny 20 
grimace of love, and paltering with passion. After Mr. Pope 
had sent off one of his fine compositions to Lady Mary, he 
made a second draft from the rough copy, and favored some 
other friend with it. He was so charmed with the letter of 
Gay's that I have just quoted, that he had copied that and 25 
amended it, and sent it to Lady Mary as his own.* A gentle- 
man who writes letters a deux fins, and after having poured 
out his heart to the beloved, serves up the same dish rechaufe 
to a friend, is not very much in earnest about his loves, 
however much he may be in his piques and vanities when his 30 
impertinence gets its due. 

But, save that unlucky part of the ''Pope Correspondence," 

* [See note on p. 534. Pope, however, was capable of very similar perform- 
ances.] 



144 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

I do not know, in the range of our literature, volumes more 
delightful.* You live in them in the finest company in the 

* Mr. Pope to the Rev. Mr. Broom, Pulham, Norfolk 

"Aug. 2gth, 1730 

"Dear Sir, — I intended to write to you on this melancholy subject, the 
death of Mr. Fenton, before yours came, but stayed to have informed myself 
and you of the circumstances of it. All I hear is, that he felt a gradual decay, 
though so early in life, and was declining for five or six months. It was not, 
as I apprehended, the gout in his stomach, but, I believe, rather a complication 
first of gross humors, as he was naturally corpulent, not discharging themselves, 
as he used no sort of exercise. No man better bore the approaches of his dis- 
solution (as I am told), or with less ostentation yielded up his being. The great 
modesty which you know was natural to him, and the great contempt he had 
for all sorts of vanity and parade, never appeared more than in his last moments : 
he had a conscious satisfaction (no doubt) in acting right, in feeling himself 
honest, true, and unpretending to more than his own. So he died as he lived, 
with that secret, yet sufficient contentment. 

"As to any papers left behind him, I dare say they can be but few; for this 
reason, he never wrote out of vanity, or thought much of the applause of men. 
I know an instance when he did his utmost to conceal his own merit that way ; 
and if we join to this his natural love of ease, I fancy we must expect little of 
this sort : at least, I have heard of none, except some few further remarks on 
Waller (which his cautious integrity made him leave an order to be given to Mr. 
Tonson), and perhaps, though it is many years since I saw it, a translation of 
the first book of Oppian. He had begun a tragedy of Dion, but made small 
progress in it. 

"As to his other affairs, he died poor but honest, leaving no debts or legacies, 
except of a few pounds to Mr. Trumbull and my lady, in token of respect, grate- 
fulness, and mutual esteem. 

"I shall with pleasure take upon me to draw this amiable, quiet, deserving, 
unpretending, Christian, and philosophical character in his epitaph. There 
truth may be spoken in a few words; as for flourish, and oratory, and poetry, 
I leave them to younger and more lively writers, such as love writing for writing's 
sake, and would rather show their own fine parts than report the valuable ones 
of any other man. So the elegy I renounce. 

"I condole with you from my heart on the loss of so worthy a man, and a 
friend to us both. ... 

" Adieu ; let us love his memory and profit by his example. Am very sincerely, 

dear sir, 

"Your affectionate and real servant." 

To the Earl of Burlington 

''August 1 7 14 

"My Lord, — If your mare could speak, she would give you an account of 



PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 145 

world. A little stately, perhaps ; a little apprete and con- 
scious that they are speaking to whole generations who are 
listening ; but in the tone of their voices — pitched, as no 
doubt they are, beyond the mere conversation key — in the 
expression of their thoughts, their various views and natures, 5 
there is something generous, and cheering, and ennobling. 

what extraordinary company she had on the road, which, since she cannot do, 
I will. 

"It was the enterprising Mr. Lintot, the redoubtable rival of Mr. Tonson, 
who, mounted on a stone-horse, overtook me in Windsor Forest. He said 
he heard I designed for Oxford, the seat of the Muses, and would, as my book- 
seller, by all means accompany me thither. 

"I asked him where he got his horse? He answered he got it of his pub- 
lisher; 'for that rogue, my printer,' said he, 'disappointed me. I hope to 
put him in good humor by a treat at the tavern of a brOwn fricasee of rabbits, 
which cost ten shillings, with two quarts of wine, besides my conversation. I 
thought myself cock-sure of his horse, which he readily promised me, but said 
that Mr. Tonson had just such another design of going to Cambridge, expecting 

there the copy of a new kind of Horace from Dr. ; and if Mr. Tonson went, 

he was preengaged to attend him, being to have the printing of the said copy. 
So, in short, I borrowed this stone-horse of my publisher, which he had of Mr. 
Oldmixon for a debt. He lent me, too, the pretty boy you see after me. He 
was a smutty dog yesterday, and cost me more than two hours to wash the ink 
off his face; but the devil is a fair- conditioned devil, and very forward in his 
catechism. If you have any more bags, he shall carry them.' 

"I thought Mr. Lintot's civility not to be neglected, so gave the boy a small 
bag containing three shirts and an Elzevir Virgil, and, mounting in an instant, 
proceeded on the road, with my man before, my courteous stationer beside, and 
the aforesaid devil behind. 

"Mr. Lintot began in this manner: 'Now, damn them! What if they 
should put it into the newspaper how you and I went together to Oxford? 
What would I care? If I should go down into Sussex, they would say I was 
gone to the Speaker; but what of that? If my son were but big enough to. 
go on with the business, by G-d, I would keep as good company as old Jacob.' 

"Hereupon, I inquired of the son. 'The lad,' says he, 'has^fine parts, but 
is somewhat sickly, much as you are. I spare for nothing in his education at 
Westminster. Pray, don't you think Westminster to be the best school in 
England? Most of the late Ministry came out of it; so did many of this 
Ministry. I hope the boy will make his fortune.' 

'"Don't you design to let him pass a year at Oxford?' 'To what purpose?' 
said he. 'The Universities do but make pedants, and I intend to breed him a 
man of business.' 

"As Mr. Lintot was talking I observed he sat uneasy on his saddle, for 



146 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

You are in the society of men who have filled the greatest 
parts in the world's story — you are with St. John the states- 
man; Peterborough the conqueror; Swift, the greatest wit 
of all times ; Gay, the kindliest laughter, — it is a privilege 
5 to sit in that company. Delightful and generous banquet ! 
with a little faith and a little fancy any one of us here may 

which I expressed some solicitude. 'Nothing,' says he. 'I can bear it well 
enough ; but, since we have the day before us, methinks it would be very pleas- 
ant for you to rest awhile under the woods.' When we were alighted, 'See, 
here, what a mighty pretty Horace I have in my pocket ! What if you amused 
yourself in turning an ode till we mount again ? Lord ! if you pleased, what 
a clever miscellany might you make at leisure hours !' 'Perhaps I may,' said 
I, ' if we ride on : the motion is an aid to my fancy ; a round trot very much 
awakens my spirits; then jog on apace, and I'll think as hard as I can.' 

"Silence ensued for a full hour; after which Mr. Lintot lugged the reins, 
stopped short, and broke out, ' Well, sir, how far have you gone ? ' I answered, 
seven miles. 'Z-ds, sir,' said Lintot, 'I thought you had done seven stanzas. 
Oldisworth, in a ramble round Wimbledon Hill, would translate a whole ode 
in half this time. I'll say that for Oldisworth [though I lost by his Timothy's], 
he translates an ode of Horace the quickest of any man in England. I remem- 
ber Dr. King would write verses in a tavern, three hours after he could not 
speak: and there is Sir Richard, in that rumbling old chariot of his, between 
Fleet Ditch and St. Giles's Pound, shall make you half a Job.' 

"'Pray, Mr. Lintot,' said I, 'now you talk of translators, what is your method 
of managing them?' 'Sir,' replied he, 'these are the saddest pack of rogues 
in the world : in a hungry fit, they'll swear they understand all the languages 
in the universe. I have known one of them take down a Greek book upon 
my counter and cry, "Ah, this is Hebrew, and must read it from the latter 
end»" By G— d, I can never be sure in these fellows, for I ne[ther understand 
Greek, Latin, French, nor Italian myself. But this is my way : I agree with 
them for ten shillings per sheet, with a proviso that I will have their doings 
corrected with whom I please; so by one or the other they are led at last to 
the true sense of an author ; my judgment giving the negative to all my trans- 
lators.' 'Then how are you sure these correctors may not impose upon you?' 
'Why, I get any civil gentleman (especially any Scotchman) that comes into 
my shop, to read the original to me in English ; by this I know whether my 
first translator be deficient, and whether my corrector merits his money or not. 

"'I'll tell you what happened to me last month. I bargained with S 

for a new version of Lucretius, to publish against Tonson's, agreeing to pay 
the author so many shillings at his producing so many lines. He made a great 
progress in a very short time, and I gave it to the corrector to compare with 
the Latin ; but he went directly to Creech's translation, and found it the same, 
word for word, all but the first page. Now, what d'ye think I did ? I arrested 



PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 147 

enjoy it, and conjure up those great figures out of the past, 
and listen to their wit and wisdom. Mind that there is v 
always a certain cachet about great men — they may be as 
mean on many points as you or I, but they carry their great 
air — they speak of common life more largely and generously 5 
than common men do — they regard the world with a manlier 

the translator for a cheat ; nay, and I stopped the corrector's pay, too, upon the 
proof that he had made use of Creech instead of the original.' 

'"Pray tell me next how you deal with the critics?' 'Sir,' said he, 'noth- 
ing more easy. I can silence the most formidable of them : the rich ones for 
a sheet apiece of the blotted manuscript, which cost me nothing ; they'll go 
about with it to their acquaintance, and pretend they had it from the author, 
who submitted it to their correction: this has given some of them such an 
air, that in time they come to be consulted with and dedicated to as the tip- 
top critics of the town. — As for the poor critics, I'll give you one instance of 
my management, by which you may guess the rest : A lean man, that looked 
like a very good scholar, came to me t'other day; he turned over your Homer, 
shook his head, shrugged up his shoulders, and pish'd at every line of it. "One 
would wonder," says he, "at the strange presumption of some men; Homer 

is no such easy task as every stripling, every versifier " he was going on 

when my wife called to dinner. "Sir," said I, "will you please to eat a piece of 
beef with me?" "Mr. Lintot," said he, "I am very sorry you should be at the 
expense of this great book: I am really concerned on your account." "Sir, 
I am much obliged to you :■ if you can dine upon a piece of beef, together with 

a slice of pudding ?" — "Mr. Lintot, I do not say but Mr. Pope, if he 

would condescend to advise with men of learning " — "Sir, the pudding 

is upon the table, if you please to go in." My critic complies; he comes to a 
taste of your poetry, and tells me in the same breath that the book is com- 
mendable, and the pudding excellent. 

"'Now, sir,' continued Mr. Lintot, 'in return for the frankness I have shown, 
pray tell me, is it the opinion of your friends at Court that my Lord Lans- 
downe will be brought to the bar or not ? ' I told him I heard he would not, 
and I hoped it, my Lord being one I had particular obHgations to. — 'That 
may be,' replied Mr. Lintot; 'but by G — if he is not, I shall lose the printing 
of a very good trial.' 

"These, my Lord, are a few traits with which you discern the genius of Mr. 
Lintot, which I have chosen for the subject of a letter. I dropped him as soon 
as I got to Oxford, and paid a visit to my Lord Carlton, at Middle ton. . . . 

"Iam,"&c. 

Dr. Swift to Mr. Pope 

"Sept. 29, 1725 
"I am now returning to the noble scene of Dublin — into the grand monde 
— for fear of burying my parts ; to signalize myself among curates and vicars, 



148 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

countenance, and see its real features more fairly than the 
; timid shufflers who only dare to look up at life through 

blinkers, or to have an opinion when there is a crowd to back 
' it. He who reads these noble records of a past age, salutes 
5 and reverences the great spirits who adorn it. You may 

go home now and talk with St. John ; you may take a volume 

from your library and listen to Swift and Pope. 

and correct all corruptions crept in relating to the weight of bread-and-butter 
through those dominions where I govern. I have employed my time (besides 
ditching) in finishing, correcting, amending, and transcribing my 'Travels' 
[Gulliver's], in four parts complete, newly augmented, and intended for the 
press when the world shall deserve them, or rather, when a printer shall be 
found brave enough to venture his ears. I like the scheme of our meeting 
after distresses and dispersions; but the chief end I propose to myself in all 
my labors is to vex the world rather than divert it; and if I could compass 
that design without hurting my own person or fortune, I would be the most 
indefatigable writer you have ever seen without reading. I am exceedingly 
pleased that you have done with translations; Lord Treasurer Oxford often 
lamented that a rascally world should lay you under a necessity of misemploy- 
ing your genius for so long a time; but since you will now be so much better 
employed, when you think of the world, give it one lash the more at my request. 
I have ever hated all nations, professions, and communities; and all my love 
is towards individuals — for instance, I hate the tribe of lawyers, but I love 
Councillor Such-a-one and Judge Such-a-one: it is so with physicians (I will 
not speak of my own trade), soldiers, English, Scotch, French, and the rest. 
But principally I hate and detest that animal called man — although I heartily 
love John, Peter, Thomas, and so forth. 

"... I have got materials towards a treatise proving the falsity of that 
definition animal rationale, and to show it should be only rationis capax. . . . 
The matter is so clear that it will admit of no dispute — nay, I will hold a 
hundred pounds that you and I agree in the point. . . . 

"Mr. Lewis sent me an account of Dr. Arbuthnot's illness, which is a very 
sensible affliction to me, who, by living so long out of the world, have lost that 
hardness of heart contracted by years and general conversation. I am daily 
losing friends, and neither seeking nor getting others. Oh ! if the world had 
but a dozen of Arbuthnots in it, I would burn my 'Travels' !" 

Mr. Pope to Dr. Swift 

"October 15, 1725 

"I am wonderfully pleased with the suddenness of your kind answer. It 

makes me hope you are coming towards us, and that you incline more and 

more to your old friends. . . . Here is one [Lord Bolingbroke] who was once a 

powerful planet, but has now (after long experience of all that comes of shining) 



PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 149 

Might I give counsel to any young hearer, I would say to 
him, Try to frequent the company of your betters. In books 
and life that is the most wholesome society ; learn to admire 
rightly; the great pleasure of life is that. Note what the 
great men admired ; they admired great things : narrow spir- 5 
its admire basely, and worship meanly. I know nothing 
in any story more gallant and cheering than the love and 
friendship which this company of famous men bore towards 
one another. There never has been a society of men more 
friendly, as there never was one more illustrious. Who dares lo 
quarrel with Mr. Pope, great and famous himself, for liking 
the society of men great and famous ? and for liking them for 
the qualities which made them so? A mere pretty fellow 
from White's could not have written the ''Patriot King," 
and would very likely have despised little Mr. Pope, the de- 15 

learned to be content with returning to his first point without the thought or 
ambition of shining at all. Here is another [Edward, Earl of Oxford], who 
thinks one of the greatest glories of his father was to have distinguished and 
loved you, and who loves you hereditarily. Here is Arbuthnot, recovered from 
the jaws of death, and more pleased with the hope of seeing you again than of 
reviewing a world, every part of which he has long despised but what is made 
up of a few men like yourself. . . . 

"Our friend Gay is used as the friends of Tories are by Whigs — and gen- 
erally by Tories too. Because he had humor, he was supposed to have dealt 
with Dr. Swift, in like manner as when any one had learning formerly, he was 
thought to have dealt with the devil. . . . 

"Lord Bolingbroke had not the least harm by his fall; I wish he had re- 
ceived no more by his other fall. But Lord Bolingbroke is the most improved 
mind since you saw him, that ever was improved without shifting into a new 
body, or being paullo minus ah angelis. I have often imagined to myself, that 
if ever all of us meet again, after so many varieties and changes, after so much 
of the old world and of the old man in each of us has been altered, that scarce 
a single thought of the one, any more than a single atom of the other, remains 
just the same ; I have fancied, I say, that we should meet like the righteous in 
the millennium, quite in peace, divested of all our former passions, smiling at 
our past follies, and content to enjoy the kingdom of the just in tranquillity. 

"I designed to have left the following page for Dr. Arbuthnot to fill, but 
he is so touched with the period in yours to me, concerning him, that he intends 
to answer it by a whole letter, . . ." 



150 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

crepit Papist, whom the great St. John held to be one of the 
best and greatest of men : a mere nobleman of the Court 
could no more have won Barcelona, than he could have writ- 
ten Peterborough's letters to Pope,* which are as witty as 
5 Congreve: a mere Irish Dean could not have written " Gul- 
liver"; and all these men loved Pope, and Pope loved all 
these men. To name his friends is to name the best men of 
his time. Addison had a senate ; Pope reverenced his equals. 
He spoke of Swift with respect and admiration always. His 
10 admiration for Bolingbroke was so great, that when some one 
said of his friend, "There is something in that great man 

* Of the Earl of Peterborough, Walpole says: — "He was one of those men 
of careless wit and negligent grace, who scatter a thousand bon-mots and idle 
verses, which we painful compilers gather and hoard, till the authors stare to 
find themselves authors. Such was this lord, of an advantageous figure and 
enterprising spirit ; as gallant as Amadis and as brave ; but a little more expe- 
ditious in his journeys: for he is said to have seen more kings and more pos- 
tilions than any man in Europe. . . . He was a man, as his friend said, who 
would neither live nor die like any other mortal." 

From the Earl of Peterborough to Pope 

"You must receive my letters with a just impartiality, and give grains of 
allowance for a gloomy or rainy day ; I sink grievously with the weather-glass, 
and am quite spiritless when oppressed with the^ thoughts of a birthday or a 
return. 

"Dutiful affection was bringing me to town; but undutiful laziness, and 
being much out of order, keep me in the country : however, if alive, I must 
make my appearance at the birthday. . . . 

"You seem to think it vexatious that I shall allow you but one woman at 
a time either to praise or love. If I dispute with you upon this point, I doubt 
every jury will give a verdict against me. So, sir, with a Mahometan indul- 
gence, I allow your pluralities, the favorite privilege of our church. 

"I find you don't mend upon correction; again I tell you you must not 
think of women in a reasonable way ; you know we always make goddesses of 
those we adore upon earth; and do not all the good men tell us we must lay 
aside reason in what relates to the Deity ? 

"... I should have been glad of anything of Swift's. Pray, when you write 
to him next, tell him I expect him with impatience, in a pjace as odd and as 
much out of the way as himself. Yours " 

Peterborough married Mrs. Anastasia Robinson, the celebrated singer. 



PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 151 

which looks as if he was placed here by mistake." ''Yes," 
Pope answered, "and when the comet appeared to us a 
month or two ago, I had sometimes an imagination that it 
might possibly be come to carry him home as a coach come 
to one's door for visitors." So these great spirits spoke of one 5 
another . Show me six of the dullest middle-aged gentlemen that 
ever dawdled round a club table so faithful and so friendly. 

We have said,before that the chief wits of this time, with the 
exception of Congreve, were what we should now call men's 
men. They spent many hours of the four-and-twenty, a 10 
fourth part of each day nearly, in clubs and coffeehouses, 
where they dined, drank, and smoked. Wit and news went 
by word of mouth ; a journal of 17 10 contained the very small- 
est portion of one or the other. The chiefs spoke, the faith- 
ful habitues sat round ; strangers came to wonder and listen. 15 
Old Dryden had his headquarters at "Will's," in Russell 
Street, at the corner of Bow Street: at which place Pope 
saw him when he was twelve years old. The company used 
to assemble on the first floor — what was called the dining- 
room floor in those days — and sat at various tables smoking 20 
their pipes. It is recorded that the beaux of the day thought 
it a great honor to be allowed to take a pinch out of Dryden's 
snuffbox. When Addison began to reign, he with a certain 
crafty propriety — a policy let us call it — which belonged 
to his nature, set up his court, and appointed the officers of 25 
his royal house. His palace was "Button's," opposite 
"Will's."* A quiet opposition^, a silent assertion of empire, 

* "Button had been a servant in the Countess of Warwick's family, who, 
under the patronage of Addison, kept a coffeehouse on the south side of Rus- 
sell Street, about two doors from Covent Garden. Here it was that the wits 
of that time used to assemble. It is said that when Addison had suffered any 
vexation from the Countess, he withdrew the company from Button's house. 

"From the coffeehouse he went again to a tavern, where he often sat late 
and drank too much wine." — Dr. Johnson. 

Will's Coffeehouse was on the west side of Bow Street, and "comer of Rus- 
sell Street." — See Handbook of London. 



152 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

distinguished this great man. Addison's ministers were 
Budgell, Tickell, Philips, Carey; his master of the horse, 
honest Dick Steele, who was what Duroc was to Napoleon, 
or Hardy to Nelson : the man who performed his master's 
5 bidding, and would have cheerfully died in his quarrel. 
Addison lived with these people for seven or eight hours 
every day. The male society passed over their punch bowls 
and tobacco pipes about as much time as ladies of that age 
spent over spadille and manille. 

lo For a brief space, upon coming up to town. Pope formed 
part of King Joseph's court, and was his rather too eager and 
obsequious humble servant.* Dick Steele, the editor of the 
Tatler, Mr. Addison's man, and his own man too — a person 
of no little figure in the world of letters — patronized the 

IS young poet, and set him a task or two. Young Mr. Pope 
did the tasks very quickly and smartly (he had been at the 
feet, quite as a boy, of Wycherley's f decrepit reputation, and 

*"My acquaintance with Mr. Addison commenced in 1712: I liked him 
then as well as I liked any man, and was very fond of his conversation. It 
was very soon after that Mr. Addison advised me 'not to be content with the 
applause of half the nation.' He used to talk much and often to me, of modera- 
tion in parties : and used to blame his dear friend Steele for being too much of 
a party man. He encouraged me in my design of translating the Iliad, which 
was begun that year, and finished in 1718." — Pope. Spence's Anecdotes. 

" Addison had Budgell, and I think Philips, in the house with him. — Gay they 
would call one of my eleres. They were angry with me for keeping so much 
with Dr. Swift and some of the late Ministry." — Pope. Spence's Anecdotes. 

t To Mr. Blount 

"Jan. 21, 1715-16 
"I know of nothing that will be so interesting to you at present as some 
circumstances of the last act of that eminent comic poet and our friend, Wycher- 
ley. He had often told me, and I doubt not he did all his acquaintance, that 
he would marry as soon as his life was despaired of. Accordingly, a few days 
before his death, he underwent the ceremony, and joined together those two 
sacraments which wise men say we should be the last to receive ; for, if you 
observe, matrimony is placed after extreme unction in our catechism, as a 
kind of hint of the order of time in which they are to be taken. The old man 
then lay down, satisfied in the consciousness of having, by this one act, obliged 
a woman who (he was told) had merit, and shown an heroic resentment of the 



PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 153 

propped up for a year that doting old wit) : he was anxious 
to be well with the men of letters, to get a footing and a recog- 
nition. He thought it an honor to be admitted into their 
company; to have the confidence of Mr. Addison's friend 
Captain Steele. His eminent parts obtained for him the honor 5 
of heralding Addison's triumph of "Cato" with his admirable 
prologue, and heading the victorious procession as it were. 
Not content with this act of homage and admiration, he 
wanted to distinguish himself by assaulting Addison's enemies, 
and attacked John Dennis with a prose lampoon, which highly 10 
offended his lofty patron. Mr. Steele was instructed to write 
to Mr. Dennis, and inform him that Mr. Pope's pamphlet 
against him was written quite without Mr. Addison's ap- 
proval.* Indeed, "The Narrative of Dr. Robert Norris on 

ill-usage of his next heir. Some hundred pounds which he had with the lady 
discharged his debts ; a jointure of £500 a year made her a recompense ; and 
the nephew was left to comfort himself as well as he could with the miserable 
remains of a mortgaged estate. I saw our friend twice after this was done — 
less peevish in his sickness than he used to be in his health; neither much afraid 
of dying, nor (which in him had been more likely) much ashamed of marrying. 
The evening before he expired, he called his young wife to the bedside, and 
earnestly entreated her not to deny him one request — the last he should make. 
Upon her assurances of consenting to it, he told her : ' My dear, it is only this 
— that you will never marry an old man again.' I cannot help remarking that 
sickness, which often destroys both wit and wisdom, yet seldom has power to 
remove that talent which we call humor. Mr. Wycherley showed his even in 
his last compliment; though I think his request a little hard, for why should 
he bar her from doubling her jointure on the same easy terms ? 

"So trivial as these circumstances are, I should not be displeased myself 
to know such trifles when they concern or characterize any eminent person. 
The wisest and wittiest of men are seldom wiser or wittier than others in these 
sober moments; at least, our friend ended much in the same character he had 
lived in ; and Horace's rule for play may as well be applied to him as a play- 
wright : — 

" ' Servetur ad imum 
Qualis ab incepto processerit et sibi constet.' 

"I am," &c. 

* "Addison, who was no stranger to the world, probably saw the selfishness 
of Pope's friendship; and resolving that he should have the consequences of 
his ofiiciousness to himself, informed Dennis by Steele that he was sorry for the 
insult." — Johnson. Life of Addison. 



154 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

the Phrenzy of J. D." is a vulgar and mean satire, and such a 
blow as the magnificent Addison could never desire to see any 
partisan of his strike in any literary quarrel. Pope was closely 
alHed with Swift when he wrote this pamphlet. It is so dirty 

5 that it has been printed in Swift's works, too. It bears the 
foul marks of the master hand. Swift admired and enjoyed 
with all his heart the prodigious genius of the young Papist 
lad out of Windsor Forest, who had never seen a university in 
his life, and came and conquered the Dons and the doctors 

lowith his wit. He applauded, and loved him, too, and pro- 
tected him, and taught him mischief. I wish Addison could 
have loved him better. The best satire that ever has been 
penned would never have been written then ; and one of the 
best characters the world ever knew would have been without 

15 a flaw. But he who had so few equals could not bear one, and. 
Pope was more than that. When Pope, trying for himself, 
and soaring on his immortal young wings, found that his, too, 
was a genius, which no pinion of that age could follow, he rose 
and left Addison's company, settling on his own eminence, and 

20 singing his own song. 

It was not possible that Pope should remain a retainer of 
Mr. Addison ; nor likely that after escaping from his vassal- 
age and assuming an independent crown, the sovereign whose 
allegiance he quitted should view him amicably.* They did 

25 not do wrong to mislike each other. They but followed the 
impulse of nature, and the consequence of position. When 
Bernadotte became heir to a throne, the Prince Royal of 

* "While I was heated with what I heard, I wrote a letter to Mr. Addison, 
to let him know ' that I was not unacquainted with this behavior of his ; that if 
I was to speak of him severely in return for it, it should not be in such a dirty 
way; that I should rather tell him himself fairly of his faults, and allow his 
good qualities; and that it should be something in the following manner.' I 
then subjoined the first sketch of what has since been called my satire on Addi- 
son. He used me very civilly ever after ; and never did me any injustice, that 
I know of, from that time to his death, which was about three years after." — 
Pope. S pence's Anecdotes. 



PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 155 

Sweden was naturally Napoleon's enemy. "There are many 
passions and tempers of mankind," says Mr. Addison in the 
Spectator, speaking a couple of years before the Httle differ- 
ences between him and Mr. Pope took place, "which natu- 
rally dispose us to depress and viHfy the merit of one rising 5 
in the esteem of mankind. All these who made their entrance 
into the world with the same advantages, and were once looked 
on as his equals, are apt to think the fame of his merits a 
reflection on their own deserts. Those who were once his 
equals envy and defame him, because they now see him the 10 
superior ; and those who were once his superiors, because they 
look upon him as their equal." Did Mr. Addison, justly per- 
haps thinking that, as young Mr. Pope had not had the benefit 
of a university education, he couldn't know Greek, therefore 
he couldn't translate Homer, encourage his young friend 15 
Mr. Tickell, of Queen's, to translate that poet, and aid him 
with his own known scholarship and skill ?* It was natural 
that Mr. Addison should doubt of the learning of an amateur 
Grecian, should have a high opinion of Mr. Tickell, of Queen's, 
and should help that ingenious young man. It was natural, 20 
on the other hand, that Mr. Pope and Mr. Pope's friends 
should believe that his counter-translation, suddenly adver- 
tised and so long written, though Tickell's college friends 
had never heard of it — though, when Pope first wrote to 
Addison regarding his scheme, Mr. Addison knew nothing of 25 
the similar project of Tickell, of Queen's — it was natural 
that Mr. Pope and his friends, having interests, passions, and 
prejudices of their own, should believe that Tickell's trans- 
lation was but an act of opposition against Pope, and that 
they should call Mr. Tickell's emulation Mr. Addison's envy 30 
— if envy it were. 

* "That Tickell should have been guilty of a villainy seems to us highly 
improbable; that Addison should have been guilty of a villainy seems to us 
highly improbable; but that these two men should have conspired together to 
commit a villainy, seems, to us, improbable in a tenfold degree." — Macaulay. 



156 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

"And were there one whose fires 

True genius kindles and fair game inspires, 

Blest with each talent and each art to please, 
^ And born to write, converse, and live with ease ; 
5 Should such a man, too fond to rule alone. 

Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne; 

View him with scornful yet with jealous eyes, 

And hate, for arts that caused himself to rise ; 

Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, 
10 And, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer ; 

Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike. 

Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike ; 

Alike reserved to blame as to commend 

A timorous foe and a suspicious friend ; 
IS Dreading even fools, by flatterers besieged. 

And so obliging that he ne'er obliged : 

Like Cato give his little senate laws, 

And sit attentive to his own applause ; 

While wits and templars every sentence raise, 
20 And wonder with a foolish face of praise ; 

Who but must laugh if such a man there be, 

Who would not weep if Atticus were he ? " 

"I sent the verses to Mr. Addison," said Pope, "and he 
used me very civilly ever after." No wonder he did. It was 

25 shame very likely more than fear that silenced him. John- 
son recounts an interview between Pope and Addison after 
their quarrel, in which Pope was angry, and Addison tried 
to be contemptuous and calm. Such a weapon as Pope's 
must have pierced any scorn. It flashes forever, and quivers 

30 in Addison's memory. His great figure looks out on us 
from the past — stainless but for that — pale, calm, and 
beautiful : it bleeds from that black wound. He should be 
drawn, like Saint Sebastian, with that arrow in his side. As 
he sent to Gay and asked his pardon, as he bade his stepson 

35 come and see his death, be sure he had forgiven Pope, when 
he made ready to show how a Christian could die.* 

* [This story has been now upset by the researches of Mr. Dilke, Mr. Elwin, 
and others ; though, when Thackeray wrote, it was the accepted version. There 



PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 157 

Pope then formed part of the Addisonian court for a short 
time, and describes himself in his letters as sitting with that 
coterie until two o'clock in the morning over punch and bur- 
gundy amidst the fumes of tobacco. To use an expression 
of the present day, the ''pace" of those viveurs of the form^ers 
age was awful. Peterborough lived into the very jaws of 
death; Godolphin labored all day and gambled at night; 
Bolingbroke,* writing to Swift, from Dawley, in his retire- 
ment, dating his letter at six o'clock in the morning, and rising, 
as he says, refreshed, serene, and calm, calls to mind the time 10 
of his London life ; when about that hour he used to be going 
to bed, surfeited with pleasure, and jaded with business; 
his head often full of schemes, and his heart as often full of 
anxiety. It was too hard, too coarse a life for the sensitive, 
sickly Pope. He was the only wit of the day, a friend writes 15 

is no reason to suppose that Addison ever saw the verses. The statement is 
part of an elaborate fiction concocted by Pope, and supported by manufactur- 
ing letters to Addison out of letters really written to another correspondent. 
The whole story may be found in the edition of Pope by Elwin and Courthope, 
and is one of the most curious cases of literary imposture on record. It is 
enough to say that all stain has been removed from Addison's character. Thack- 
eray would have rejoiced at that result, though he would have had to modify 
some of the eulogy bestowed upon Pope.] 

* Lord Bolingbroke to the Three Yahoos of Twickenham 

"July 23, 1726 
"Jonathan, Alexander, John, most excellent Triumvirs of Par- 
nassus, — Though you are probably very indifferent where I am, or what I am 
doing, yet I resolve to believe the contrary. I persuade myself that you have 
sent at least fifteen times within this fortnight to Dawley farm, and that you 
are extremely mortified at my long silence. To relieve you, therefore, from this 
great anxiety of mind, I can do no less than write a few lines to you; and I 
please myself beforehand with the vast pleasure which this epistle must needs 
give you. That I may add to this pleasure, and give further proofs of my 
beneficent temper, I will likewise inform you, that I shall be in your neigh- 
borhood again by the end of next week : by which time I hope that Jonathan's 
imagination of business will be succeeded by some imagination more becoming 
a professor of that divine science, la bagatelle. Adieu. Jonathan, Alexander, 
John, mirth be with you !" « 



158 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

to me, who wasn't fat.* Swift was fat; Addison was fat; 
Steele was fat ; Gay and Thomson were preposterously fat — 
all that fuddling and punch-drinking, that club and coffee- 
house boozing, shortened the lives and enlarged the waist- 

5 coats of the men of that age. Pope withdrew in a great 
measure from this boisterous London company, and being 
put into an independence by the gallant exertions of Swift f 
and his private friends, and by the enthusiastic national ad- 
miration which justly rewarded his great achievement of the 

10 ''Iliad," purchased that famous villa of Twickenham which 
his song and life celebrated ; duteously bringing his old parent 
to live and die there, entertaining his friends there, and mak- 
ing occasional visits to London in his little chariot, in which 
Atterbury compared him to "Homer in a nutshell." 

15 ''Mr. Dryden was not a genteel man," Pope quaintly said 
to Spence, speaking of the manner and habits of the famous 
old patriarch of "Will's." With regard to Pope's own man- 
ners, we have the best contemporary authority that they were 
singularly refined and polished. With his extraordinary 

20 sensibility, with his known tastes, with his delicate frame, with 
his power and dread of ridicule. Pope could have been no 
other than what we call a highly bred person, t His closest 
friends, with the exception of Swift, were among the delights 
and ornaments of the polished society of their age. Garth, § 

* Prior must be excepted from this observation. "He was lank and lean." 

t Swift exerted himself very much in promoting the Iliad subscription ; 
and also introduced Pope to Harley and Bolingbroke. Pope realized by the 
Iliad upwards of £5000, which he laid out partly in annuities, and partly in 
the purchase of his famous villa. Johnson remarks that "it would be hard to 
find a man, so well entitled to notice by his wit, that ever delighted so much in 
talking of his money." 

J "His (Pope's) voice in common conversation was so naturally musical, 
that I remember honest Tom Southerne used always to call him ' the Uttle night- 
ingale.' " — Orrery. 

§ Garth, whom Dryden calls "generous as his Muse," was a Yorkshireman, 
He graduated at Cambridge, and was made M.D. in 1691. He soon distin- 
guished himself in his profession, by his poem of the "Dispensary," and in 



PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE i59 

the accomplished and benevolent, whom Steele has described 
so charmingly, of whom Codrington said that his character 
was "all beauty," and whom Pope himself called the best of 
Christians without knowing it; Arbuthnot,* one of the 

society, and pronounced Dryden's funeral oration. He was a strict Whig, a 
notable member of the "Kit-Cat," and a friendly, convivial, able man. He was 
knighted by George I, with the Duke of Marlborough's sword. He died in 1718. 
* "Arbuthnot was the son of an Episcopal clergyman in Scotland, and be- 
longed to an ancient and distinguished Scotch family. He was educated at 
Aberdeen ; and, coming up to London — according to a Scotch practice often 
enough alluded to — to make his fortvme, first made himself known by An 
Examination of Dr. Woodward's Account of the Deluge. He became physician 
successively to Prince George of Denmark and to Queen Anne. He is usually 
allowed to have been the most learned, as well as one of the most witty and 
humorous members of the Scriblerus Club. The opinion entertained of him 
by the humorists of the day is abundantly evidenced in their correspondence. 
When he foimd himself in his last illness, he wrote thus, from this retreat at 

Hampstead, to Swift : — 

"'Hampstead: Oct. 4, 1734 

"'My Dear and Worthy Friend, — You have no reason to put me among 
the rest of your forgetful friends, for I wrote two long letters to you, to which 
I never received one word of answer. The first was about your health; the 
last I sent a great while ago, by one De la Mar. I can assure you with great 
truth that none of your friends or acquaintance has a more warm heart towards 
you than myself. I am going out of this troublesome world, and you, among 
the rest of my friends, shall have my last prayers and good wishes. 

"'. . . I came but to this place so reduced by a dropsy and an asthma, 
that I could neither sleep, breathe, eat, nor move. I most earnestly desired 
and begged of God that He would take me. Contrary to my expectation, upon 
venturing to ride (which I had forborne for some years) I recovered my strength 
to a pretty considerable degree, slept, and had my stomach again. . . . What I 
did, I can assure you was not for life, but ease ; for I am at present in the case of 
a man that was almost in harbor, and then blown back to sea — who has a 
reasonable hope of going to a good place, and an absolute certainty of leaving a 
very bad one. Not that I have any particular disgust at the world; for I have 
as great comfort in my own family and from the kindness of my friends as any 
man ; but the world, in the main, displeases me, and I have too true a presenti- 
ment of calamities that are to befall my country. However, if I should have the 
happiness to see you before I die, you will find that I enjoy the comforts of life 
with my usual cheerfulness. I cannot imagine why you are frightened from a 
journey to England : the reasons you assign are not sufficient — the journey, I 
am sure, would do you good. In general, I recommend riding, of which I have 
always had a good opinion, and can now confirm it from my own experience. 

"'My family give you their love and service. The great loss I sustained in 



i6o ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

wisest, wittiest, most accomplished, gentlest of mankind; 
Bolingbroke, the Alcibiades of his age ; the generous Oxford ; 
the magnificent, the witty, the famous, and chivalrous 
Peterborough : these were the fast and faithful friends of 
5 Pope, the most brilliant company of friends, let us repeat, 
that the world has ever seen. The favorite recreation of his 
leisure hours was the society of painters, whose art he prac- 
ticed. In his correspondence are letters between him and 
Jervas, whose pupil he loved to be — Richardson, a cele- 
lo brated artist of his time, and who painted for him a portrait of 
his old mother, and for whose picture he asked and thanked 
Richardson in one of the most delightful letters that ever 
were panned,* — and the wonderful Kneller, who bragged 

one of them gave me my first shock, and the trouble I have with the rest to 
bring them to a right temper to bear the loss of a father who loves them, and 
whom they love, is really a most sensible affliction to me. I am afraid, my 
dear friend, we shall never see one another more in this world. I shall, to the 
last moment, preserve my love and esteem for you, being well assured you will 
never leave the paths of virtue and honour ; for all that is in this world is not 
worth the least deviation from the way. It will be great pleasure to me to hear 
from you sometimes ; for none are with more sincerity than I am, my dear 
friend, your most faithful friend and humble servant.' " 

"Arbuthnot," Johnson says, "was a man of great comprehension, skilful in 
his profession, versed in the sciences, acquainted with ancient literature, and 
able to animate his mass of knowledge by a bright and active imagination; a 
scholar with great briUiance of wit; a wit who, in the crowd of life, retained 
and discovered a noble ardour of religious zeal." 

Dugald Stewart has testified to Arbuthnot's ability in a department of which 
he was particularly qualified to judge: "Let me add, that, in the list of philo- 
sophical reformers, the authors of Martinus ScriUerus ought not to be over- 
looked. Their happy ridicule of the scholastic logic and metaphysics is uni- 
versally known ; but few are aware of the acuteness and sagacity displayed 
in their allusions to some of the most vulnerable passages in Locke's Essay. 
In this part of the work it is commonly imderstood that Arbuthnot had the 
principal share." — See Preliminary Dissertation to Encyclopcedia Britannica, 
note to p. 242, and also note b. b. b., p. 285. 

* To Mr. Richardson 

"Twickenham, June 10, 1733 
"As I know you and I mutually desire to see one another, I hoped that this 
day our wishes would have met, and brought you hither. And this for the very 



PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE i6i 

more, spelt worse, and painted better than any artist of his 
day.* 

It is affecting to note, through Pope's correspondence, the 
marked way in which his friends, the greatest, the most fa- 
mous, and wittiest men of the time — generals and states- 5 
men, philosophers and divines — ■ all have a kind word and a 
kind thought for the good simple old mother, whom Pope 
tended so affectionately. Those men would have scarcely 
valued her, but that they knew how much he loved her, and 
that they pleased him by thinking of her. If his early letters 10 
to women are affected and insincere, whenever he speaks 
about this one, it is with a childish tenderness and an almost 
sacred simplicity. In 17 13, when young Mr. Pope had, by a 
series of the most astonishing victories and dazzling achieve- 
ments, seized the crown of poetry, and the town was in an 15 
uproar of admiration, or hostility, for the young chief ; when 
Pope was issuing his famous decrees for the translation of the 
*' Iliad"; when Dennis and the lower critics were hooting 
and assailing him; when Addison and the gentlemen of his 

reason, which possibly might hinder you coming, that my poor mother is dead. 
I thank God her death was as easy as her hfe was innocent ; and as it cost her 
not a groan, or even a sigh, there is yet upon her countenance such an expres- 
sion of tranquilHty, nay, almost of pleasure, that it is even amiable to behold 
it. It would afford the finest image of a saint expired that ever painting drew; 
and it would be the greatest obligation which even that obliging art could ever 
bestow on a friend, if you could come and sketch it for me. I am sure, if there 
be no very prevalent obstacle, you will leave any common business to do this ; 
and I hope to see you this evening, as late as you will, or to-morrow morning . 
as early, before this winter flower is faded. I will defer her interment till to- 
morrow night. I know you love me, or I could not have written this — I could 
not (at this time) have written at all. Adieu ! May you die as happily ! 

"Yours," &c. 

*''Mr. Pope was with Sir Godfrey Kneller one day, when his nephew, a 
Guinea trader, came in. 'Nephew,' said Sir Godfrey, 'you have the honor of 
seeing the two greatest men in the world.' 'I don't know how great you may 
be,' said the Guinea man, 'but I don't like your looks: I have often bought a 
man much better than both of you together, all muscles and bones, for ten 
guineas.'" — Dr. Warburton. Spence's Anecdotes. 



1 62 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

court were sneering with sickening hearts at the prodigious 
triumphs of the young conqueror; when Pope, in a fever of 
victory, and genius, and hope, and anger, was struggling 
through the crowd of shouting friends and furious detractors 

5 to his temple of Fame, his old mother writes from the coun- 
try, "My deare," says she — "my deare, there's Mr. Blount, 
of Mapel Durom, dead the same day that Mr. Ingefield died. 
Your sister is well; but your brother is sick. My service 
to Mrs. Blount, and all that ask of me. I hope to hear from 

loyou, and that you are well, which is my daily prayer; and 
this with my blessing." The triumph marches by, and the 
car of the young conqueror, the hero of a hundred brilliant 
victories : the fond mother sits in the quiet cottage at home 
and says, "I send you my daily prayers and I bless you, my 

15 deare." 

In our estimate of Pope's character, let us always take into 
account that constant tenderness and fidelity of affection 
which pervaded and sanctified his life, and never forget that 
maternal benediction.* It accompanied him always : his 

20 life seems purified by those artless and heartfelt prayers. 
And he seems to have received and deserved the fond attach- 
ment of the other members of his family. It is not a little 
touching to read in Spence of the enthusiastic admiration with 
which his half sister regarded him, and the simple anecdote 

25 by which she illustrates her love. "I think no man was ever 
so Httle fond of money." Mrs. Rackett says about her 
brother, "I think my brother when he was young read more 
books than any man in the world;" and she falls to telling 
stories of his school days, and the manner in which his master 

* Swift's mention of him as ojie 

"whose filial piety excels 
Whatever Grecian story tells," 

is well known. And a sneer of Walpole's may be put to a better use than he 
ever intended it for, d propos of this subject. He charitably sneers, in one of 
his letters, at Spence's " fondling an old mother — in imitation of Pope ! " 



PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 163 

at Twyford ill-used him. "I don't think my brother knew 
what fear was," she continues; and the accounts of Pope's 
friends bear out this character for courage. When he had 
exasperated the dunces, and threats of violence and personal 
assault were brought to him, the dauntless little champion 5 
never for one instant allowed fear to disturb him, or conde- 
scended to take any guard in his daily walks except occasion- 
ally his faithful dog to bear him company. "I had rather die 
at once," said the gallant little cripple, "than live in fear of 
those rascals." 10 

As for his death, it was what the noble Arbuthnot asked and 
enjoyed for himself — a euthanasia — a beautiful end. A 
perfect benevolence, affection, serenity hallowed the departure 
of that high soul. Even in the very hallucinations of his 
brain, and weaknesses of his delirium, there was something 15 
almost sacred. Spence describes him in his last days, look- 
ing up and with a rapt gaze as if something had suddenly 
passed before him. ''He said to me, 'What's that?' point- 
ing into the air with a very steady regard, and then looked 
down and said, with a smile of the greatest softness, ' 'Twas a 20 
vision!'" He laughed scarcely ever, but his companions 
describe his countenance as often illuminated by a peculiar 
sweet smile. 

"When," said Spence,* the kind anecdotist whom Johnson 
despised — "when I was telling Lord Bolingbroke that Mr. 25 
Pope, on every catching and recovery of his mind, was always 
saying something kindly of his present or absent friends ; and 
that this was so surprising, as it seemed to me as if humanity 

* Joseph Spence was the son of a clergyman, near Winchester. He was a 
short time at Eton, and afterwards became a Fellow of New College, Oxford, 
a clergyman, and professor of poetry. He was a friend of Thomson's, whose 
reputation he aided. He published an Essay on the Odyssey in 1726, which 
introduced him to Pope. Everybody liked him. His Anecdotes were placed, 
while still in Ms., at the service of Johnson and also of Malone. They were 
published by Mr. Singer in 1820. 



1 64 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

had outlasted understanding, Lord Bolingbroke said, 'It 
has so,' and then added, 'I never in my hfe knew a man who 
had so tender a heart for his particular friends, or a more 
general friendship for mankind. I have known him these 
5 thirty years, and value myself more for that man's love than 

' Here," Spence says, "St. John sunk his head and lost 

his voice in tears." The sob which finishes the epitaph is 
finer than words. It is the cloak thrown over the father's 
face in the famous Greek picture, which hides the grief and 

lo heightens it. 

In Johnson's ''Life of Pope" you will find described, with 
rather a malicious minuteness, some of the personal habits 
and infirmities of the great little Pope. His body was crooked, 
he was so short that it was necessary to raise his chair in order 

15 to place him on a level with other people at table.* He was 
sewed up in a buckram suit every morning, and required a 
nurse like a child. His contemporaries reviled these misfor- 
tunes with a strange acrimony, and made his poor deformed 
person the butt for many a bolt of heavy wit. The facetious 

20 Mr. Dennis, in speaking of him, says, "If you take the first 
letter of Mr. Alexander Pope's Christian name, and the first 
and last letters of his surname, you have A. P. E." Pope 
catalogues, at the end of the "Dunciad," with a rueful pre- 
cision, other pretty names, besides Ape, which Dennis called 

25 him. That great critic pronounced Mr. Pope a little ass, a 
fool, a coward, a Papist, and therefore a hater of Scripture, 
and so forth. It must be remembered that the pillory was a 

* He speaks of Arbuthnot's having helped him through "that long disease, 
my life." But not only was he so feeble as is impHed in his use of the "buck- 
ram," but "it now appears," says Mr. Peter Cunningham, "from his unpub- 
lished letters that, like Lord Harvey, he had recourse to ass's milk for the preser- 
vation of his health." It is to his lordship's use of that simple beverage that 
he alludes when he says — 

"Let Sporus tremble ! — A. What, that thing of silk, 
Sporus, that mere white-curd of ass's milk?" 



PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 165 

flourishing and popular institution in those days. Authors 
stood in it in the body sometimes : and dragged their enemies 
thither morally, hooted them with foul abuse and assailed 
them with garbage of the gutter. Poor Pope's figure was 
an easy one for those clumsy caricaturists to draw. Any 5 
stupid hand could draw a hunchback and write Pope under- 
neath. They did. A libel was published against Pope, with 
such a frontispiece. This kind of rude jesting was an evi- 
dence not only of an ill nature, but a dull one. When a child 
makes a pun, or a lout breaks out into a laugh, it is some very 10 
obvious combination of words, or discrepancy of objects, 
which provokes the infantine satirist, or tickles the boorish 
wag; and many of Pope's revilers laughed not so much 
because they were wicked, as because they knew no better. 

Without the utmost sensibility. Pope could not have been 15 
the poet he was ; and through his life, however much he pro- 
tested that he disregarded their abuse, the coarse ridicule of 
his opponents stung and tore him. One of Gibber's pam- 
phlets coming into Pope's hands, whilst Richardson the painter 
was with him. Pope turned round and said, "These things are 20 
my diversions;" and Richardson, sitting by whilst Pope 
perused the libel, said he saw his features "writhing with 
anguish." How little human nature changes ! Can't one 
see that little figure? Can't one fancy one is reading Hor- 
ace ? Can't one fancy one is speaking of to-day ? " 25 

The tastes and sensibilities of Pope, which led him to cul- 
tivate the society of persons of fine manners, or wit, or taste, 
or beauty, caused him to shrink equally from that shabby 
and boisterous crew which formed the rank and file of litera- 
ture in his time : and he was as unjust to these men as they 30 
to him. The delicate little creature sickened at habits and 
company which were quite tolerable to robuster men : and 
in the famous feud between Pope and the Dunces, and with- 
out attributing any peculiar wrong to either, one can quite 



1 66 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

understand how the two parties should so hate each other. 
As I fancy, it was a sort of necessity that when Pope's triumph 
passed, Mr. Addison and his men should look rather con- 
temptuously down on it from their balcony ; so it was natural 
5 for Dennis and Tibbald, and Welsted and Gibber, and the 
worn and hungry pressmen in the crowd below, to howl at 
him and assail him. And Pope was more savage to Grub 
Street than Grub Street was to Pope. The thong with which 
he lashed them was dreadful; he fired upon that howling 

lo crew such shafts of flame and poison, he slew and wounded so 
fiercely, that in reading the ^'Dunciad" and the prose lam- 
poons of Pope, one feels disposed to side against the ruthless 
little tyrant, at least to pity those wretched folk on whom he 
was so unmerciful. It was Pope, and Swift to aid him, who 

15 established among us the Grub Street tradition. He revels 
in base descriptions of poor men's want ; he gloats over poor 
Dennis's garret, and flannel nightcap and red stockings; 
he gives instructions how to find Curll's authors — the his- 
torian at the tallow-chandler's under the blind arch in Petty 

20 France, the two translators in bed together, the poet in the 
cock-loft in Budge Row, whose landlady keeps the ladder. 
It was Pope, I fear, who contributed, more than any man who 
ever lived, to depreciate the literary calling. It was not an 
unprosperous one before that time, as we have seen ; at least 

25 there were great prizes in the profession which had made 
Addison a Minister, and Prior an Ambassador, and Steele a 
Commissioner, and Swift all but a Bishop. The profession 
of letters was ruined by that libel of the ^'Dunciad."* If 
authors were wretched and poor before, if some of them lived 

* [This statement would require qualification. The Grub Street author was 
probably worse off in the time of Queen Anne than in the time of George II., 
and the "Dunciad" really showed that he could make himself more effectually 
unpleasant to his superiors. The prizes of Queen Anne's time did not go to the 
professional author, but to the authors who were in a good enough position 
to be on friendly terms with ministers.] 



PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 167 

in haylofts, of which their landladies kept the ladders, at 
least nobody came to disturb them in their straw ; if three of 
them had but one coat between them, the two remained in- 
visible in the garret, the third, at any rate, appeared decently 
at the coffeehouse and paid his twopence like a gentleman. 5 
It was Pope that dragged into light all this poverty and mean- 
ness, and held up those wretched shifts and rags to public 
ridicule. It was Pope that has made generations of the 
reading world (delighted with the mischief, as who would not 
be that reads it ?) believe that author and wretch, author and 10 
rags, author and dirt, author and drink, gin, cowheel, tripe, 
poverty, duns, bailiffs, squalling children and clamorous land- 
ladies, were always associated together. The condition of 
authorship began to fall from the days of the ''Dunciad": 
and I believe in my heart that much of that obloquy which has 15 
since pursued our calling was occasioned by Pope's libels and 
wicked wit. Everybody read those. Everybody was famil- 
iarized with the idea of the poor devil, the author. The 
manner is so captivating that young authors practice it, and 
begin their career with satire. It is so easy to write, and so 20 
pleasant to read ! to fire a shot that makes a giant wince, 
perhaps; and fancy oneself his conqueror. It is easy to 
shoot — but not as Pope did. The shafts of his satire rise 
sublimely: no poet's verse ever mounted higher than that 
wonderful flight with which the ''Dunciad" concludes :* 25 

" She comes, she comes ! the sable throne behold 
Of Night primeval and of Chaos old ; 
Before her, Fancy's gilded clouds decay, 
And all its varying rainbows die away ; 

Wit shoots in vain its momentary fires, 30 

The meteor drops, and in a flash expires. 
As, one by one, at dread Medea's strain 
The sick'ning stars fade off the ethereal plain ; 

* "He (Johnson) repeats to us, in his forcible melodious manner, the con- 
cluding lines of the 'Dunciad.'" — Boswell. 



1 68 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

As Argus' eyes, by Hermes' wand oppress'd, 

Closed, one by one, to everlasting rest ; — 

Thus, at her fell approach and secret might, 

Art after Art goes out, and all is night. 
5 See skulking Truth to her old cavern fled, 

Mountains of casuistry heaped o'er her head; 

Philosophy, that leaned on Heaven before, 

Shrinks to her second cause and is no more. 

Religion, blushing, veils her sacred fires, 
lo And, unawares, Morahty expires. 

Nor public flame, nor private, dares to shine, 

Nor human spark is left, nor glimpse divine. 

Lo ! thy dread empire, Chaos, is restored. 

Light dies before thy uncreating word ; 
15 Thy hand, great Anarch, lets the curtain fall, 

And universal darkness buries all." * 

In these astonishing lines Pope reaches, I think, to the very 
greatest height which his sublime art has attained, and shows 
himself the equal of all poets of all times. It is the brightest 

20 ardor, the loftiest assertion of truth, the most generous wis- 
dom illustrated by the noblest poetic figure, and spoken in 
words the aptest, grandest, and most harmonious. It is 
heroic courage speaking : a splendid declaration of righteous 
wrath and war. It is the gage fiung down, and the silver 

25 trumpet ringing defiance to falsehood and tyranny, deceit, 
dullness, superstition. It is Truth, the champion, shining 
and intrepid, and fronting the great world-tyrant with armies 
of slaves at his back. It is a wonderful and victorious single 
combat, in that great battle which has always been waging 

30 since society began. 

In speaking of a work of consummate art one does not try 
to show what it actually is, for that were vain ; but what it is 
like, and what are the sensations produced in the mind of 

* "Mr. Langton informed me that he once related to Johnson (on the author- 
ity of Spence) that Pope himself admired these lines so much that when he 
repeated them his voice faltered. 'And well it might, sir,' said Johnson, 'for 
they are noble lines.' " — /. Boswell, junior. 



PRIOR, GAY, AND POPE 169 

him who views it. And in considering Pope's admirable 
career, I am forced into simiHtudes drawn from other courage 
and greatness, and into comparing him with those who achieved 
triumphs in actual war. I think of the works of young Pope 
as I do of the actions of young Bonaparte or young Nelson. 5 
In their common life you will find frailties and meannesses, 
as great as the vices and follies of the meanest men. But 
in the presence of the great occasion, the great soul flashes 
out, and conquers transcendent. In thinking of the splen- 
dor of Pope's young victories, of his merit, unequaled as his 10 
renown, I hail and salute the achieving genius, and do hom- 
age to the pen of a hero. 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 

I suppose as long as novels last and authors aim at inter- 
esting their public, there must always be in the story a vir- 
tuous and a gallant hero, a wicked monster his opposite, and 
a pretty girl who finds a champion ; bravery and virtue con- 
5 quer beauty ; and vice, after seeming to triumph through 
a certain number of pages, is sure to be discomfited in the last 
volume, when justice overtakes him and honest folk come 
by their own. There never was perhaps a greatly popular 
story but this simple plot was carried through it : mere satiric 

lowit is addressed to a class of readers and thinkers quite 
different to those simple souls who laugh and weep over the 
novel. I fancy very few ladies, indeed, for instance, could be 
brought to like "Gulliver" heartily, and (putting the coarse- 
ness and difference of manners out of the question) to relish 

15 the wonderful satire of ''Jonathan Wild." In that strange 
apologue, the author takes for a hero the greatest rascal, 
coward, traitor, tyrant, hypocrite, that his wit and experience, 
both large in this matter, could enable him to devise or depict ; 
he accompanies this villain through all the actions of his life, 

20 with a grinning deference and a wonderful mock respect; 
and doesn't leave him till he is dangling at the gallows, when 
the satirist makes him a low bow and wishes the scoundrel 
good day. 

It was not by satire of this sort, or by scorn and contempt, 

25 that Hogarth achieved his vast popularity and acquired his 
reputation.* His art is quite simple; f he speaks popular 

^ * Coleridge speaks of the "beautiful female faces" in Hogarth's pictures, 
"in whom," he says, "the satirist never extinguished that love of beauty which 
belonged to him as a poet." — The Friend. 

t "I was pleased with the reply of a gentleman, who, being asked which 

170 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 171 

parables to interest simple hearts, and to inspire them with 
pleasure or pity or warning and terror. Not one of his tales 
but is as easy as "Goody Two-Shoes"; it is the moral of 
Tommy was a naughty boy and the master flogged him, and 
Jacky was a good boy and had plum cake, which pervades s 
the whole works of the homely and famous English moralist. 

book he esteemed most in his library, answered ' Shakespeare ' : being asked 
which he esteemed next best, repUed 'Hogarth.' His graphic representations 
are indeed books : they have the teeming, fruitful, suggestive meaning of words. 
Other pictures we look at — his prints we read. . . . 

"The quantity of thought which Hogarth crowds into every picture would 
almost unvulgarize every subject which he might choose. . . . 

"I say not that all the ridiculous subjects of Hogarth have necessarily some- 
thing in them to make us like them ; some are indifferent to us, some in their 
nature repulsive, and only made interesting by the wonderful skill and truth 
to nature in the painter ; but I contend that there is in most of them that sprin- 
kling of the better nature, which, like holy water, chases away and disperses 
the contagion of the bad. They have this in them, besides, that they bring us 
acquainted with the everyday human face, — they give us skill to detect those 
gradations of sense and virtue (which escape the careless or fastidious observer) 
in the circumstances of the world about us ; and prevent that disgust at common 
life, that tcedium quotidianarum formarum, which an unrestricted passion for 
ideal forms and beauties is in danger of producing. In this, as in many other 
things, they are analogous to the best novels of Smollett and Fielding." — Charles 
Lamh. 

" It has been observed that Hogarth's pictures are exceedingly unlike any 
other representations of the same kind of subjects — that they form a class, and 
have a character peculiar to themselves. It may be worth while to consider in 
what this general distinction consists. 

"In the first place, they are, in the strictest sense, historical pictures; and 
if what Fielding says be true, that his novel of Tom Jones ought to be regarded 
as an epic prose-poem, because it contained a regular development of fable, 
manners, character, and passion, the compositions of Hogarth will, in like 
manner, be found to have a higher claim to the title of epic pictures than many 
which have of late arrogated that denomination to themselves. When we say 
that Hogarth treated his subjects historically, we mean that his works repre- 
sent the manners and humors of mankind in action, and their characters by 
varied expression. Everything in his pictures has life and motion in it. Not 
only does the business of the scene never stand still, but every feature and 
muscle is put into full play ; the exact feehng of the moment is brought out, 
and carried to its utmost height, and then instantly seized and stamped on the 
canvas forever. The expression is always taken en passant, in a state of progress 
or change, and, as it were, at the salient point. ... His figures are not Uke 



172 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

And if the moral is written in rather too large letters after 
the fable, we must remember how simple the scholars and 
schoolmaster both were, and like neither the less because they 
are so artless and honest. ''It was a maxim of Doctor Har- 
srison's," Fielding says, in ''Amelia," — speaking of the be- 
nevolent divine and philosopher who represents the good 
principle in that novel — "that no man can descend below 
himself, in doing any act which may contribute to protect 
an innocent person, or to bring a rogue to the gallows. ^^ The 

lo moralists of that age had no compunction, you see; they 
had not begun to be skeptical about the theory of punish- 
ment, and thought that the hanging of a thief was a spectacle 
for edification. Masters sent their apprentices, fathers took 
their children, to see Jack Sheppard or Jonathan Wild hanged, 

15 and it was as undoubting subscribers to this moral law that 
Fielding wrote and Hogarth painted. Except in one in- 
stance, where, in the madhouse scene in the " Rake's Progress," 
the girl whom he has ruined is represented as still tending 
and weeping over him in his insanity, a glimpse of pity for 

20 his rogues never seems to enter honest Hogarth's mind. 
There's not the slightest doubt in the breast of the jolly Draco. 
The famous set of pictures called "Marriage a la Mode," 
and which are now exhibited in the National Gallery in Lon- 
don, contains the most important and highly wrought of the 

25 Hogarth comedies. The care and method with which the 
moral grounds of these pictures are laid is as remarkable 
as the wit and skill of the observing and dexterous artist. 

the background on which they are painted : even the pictures on the wall have 
a peculiar look of their own. Again, with the rapidity, variety, and scope of 
history, Hogarth's heads have all the reality and correctness of portraits. He 
gives the extremes of character and expression, but he gives them with perfect 
truth and accuracy. This is, in fact, what distinguishes his compositions from 
all others of the same kind, that they are equally remote from caricature, and 
from mere still life. . . . His faces go to the very verge of caricature, and yet 
never (we believe in any single instance) go beyond it." — Hazlitt. 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 173 

He has to describe the negotiations for a marriage pending 
between the daughter of a rich citizen Alderman and young 
Lord Viscount Squanderfield, the dissipated son of a gouty 
old Earl. Pride and pomposity appear in every accessory 
surrounding the Earl. He sits in gold lace and velvet — as 5 
how should such an Earl wear anything but velvet and gold 
lace ? His coronet is everywhere : on his footstool, on which < 
reposes one gouty toe turned out ; on the sconces and looking- 
glasses ; on the dogs ; * on his lordship's very crutches ; 
on his great chair of state and the great baldaquin behind 10 
him ; under which he sits pointing majestically to his pedi- 
gree, which shows that his race is sprung from the loins of 
William the Conqueror, and confronting the old Alderman 
from the City, who has mounted his sword for the occasion, 
and wears his Alderman's chain, and has brought a bag full 15 
of money, mortgage deeds, and thousand-pound notes, for 
the arrangement of the transaction pending between them. 
Whilst the steward f (a Methodist — therefore a hypocrite 
and cheat : for Hogarth scorned a Papist and a Dissenter) 
is negotiating between the old couple, their children sit to- 20 
gether, united but apart. My lord is admiring his counte- 
nance in the glass, while his bride is twiddling her marriage 
ring on her pocket handkerchief, and listening with rueful 
countenance to Counsellor Silvertongue, who has been draw- 
ing the settlements. The girl is pretty, but the painter, 25 
with a curious watchfulness, has taken care to give her a 
likeness to her father ; as in the young Viscount's face you 
see a resemblance to the Earl his noble sire. The sense of 
the coronet pervades the picture, as it is supposed to do 
the mind of its wearer. The pictures round the room are 30 

* [There is no coronet on the dogs in the picture. A coronet was conferred 
upon one dog in the engraving.] 

t [This person is the Alderman's clerk or cashier. The Methodist steward 
(a different person) appears in the next picture — the breakfast scene.] 



174 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

sly hints indicating the situation of the parties about to marry. 
A martyr is led to the fire ; Andromeda * is offered to sacrifice ; 
Judith is going to slay Holofernes. There is the ancestor 
of the house (in the picture it is the Earl himself as a young 
5 man), with a comet over his head, indicating that the career 
of the family is to be brilliant and brief. In the second pic- 
ture t the old lord must be dead, for Madam has now the 
Countess's coronet over her bed and toilet glass, and sits 
listening to that dangerous Counselor Silvertongue, whose 

lo portrait now actually hangs up in her room, whilst the coun- 
selor takes his ease on the sofa by her side, evidently the 
familiar of the house, and the confidant of the mistress. 
My Lord takes his pleasure elsewhere than at home, whither 
he returns jaded and tipsy from the "Rose," to find his wife 

15 yawning in her drawing-room, her whist party over, and the 
daylight streaming in; or he amuses himself with the very 
worst company abroad, whilst his wife sits at home listening 
to foreign singers, or wastes her money at auctions, or, worse 
still, seeks amusement at masquerades. The dismal end is 

20 known. My Lord draws upon the counselor, who kills 
him, and is apprehended whilst endeavoring to escape. My 
lady goes back perforce to the Alderman in the City, and 
faints t upon reading Counselor Silvertongue's dying speech 
at Tyburn, where the counselor has been executed for send- 

25 ing his Lordship out of the world. Moral : — Don't listen to 
evil silver-tongued counselors : don't marry a man for his 
rank, or a woman for her money: don't frequent foolish 
auctions and masquerade balls unknown to your husband: 
don't have wicked companions abroad and neglect your wife, 

30 otherwise you will be run through the body, and ruin will 
ensue, and disgrace, and Tyburn. The people are all naughty, 

* [This is a mistake. The only person Hkely to be intended is St. Sebastian. 
Any reference to the incidents is very doubtful.] 

t [Really the fourth.] J [She has taken laudanum and is dead.] 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 175 

and Bogey carries them all off. In the "Rake's Progress," 
a loose life is ended by a similar sad catastrophe. It is the 
spendthrift coming into possession of the wealth of the pater- 
nal miser ; the prodigal surrounded by flatterers, and wasting 
his substance on the very worst company; the bailiffs, the 5 
gambling-house, and Bedlam for an end. In the famous 
story of "Industry and Idleness," the moral is pointed in 
a manner similarly clear. Fair-haired Frank Goodchild 
smiles at his work, whilst naughty Tom Idle snores over his 
loom. Frank reads the edifying ballads of " Whittington " 10 
and the "London 'Prentice," whilst that reprobate Tom 
Idle prefers "Moll Flanders," and drinks hugely of beer. 
Frank goes to church of a Sunday, and warbles hymns from 
the gallery ; while Tom lies on a tombstone outside playing 
at " halfpenny-under-the-hat " with street blackguards, and 15 
is deservedly caned by the beadle. Frank is made overseer 
of the business, whilst Tom is sent to sea. Frank is taken 
into partnership and marries his master's daughter, sends out 
broken victuals to the poor, and listens in his nightcap and 
gown, with the lovely Mrs. Goodchild by his side, to the 20 
nuptial music of the City bands and the marrow-bones and 
cleavers; whilst idle Tom, returned from sea, shudders in 
a garret lest the officers are coming to take him for picking 
pockets. The Worshipful Francis Goodchild, Esquire, be- 
comes Sheriff of London,, and partakes of the most splendid 25 
dinners which money can purchase or Alderman devour; 
whilst poor Tom is taken up in a night-cellar, with that 
one-eyed and disreputable accomplice who first taught him 
to play chuck-farthing on a Sunday. What happens next? 
Tom is brought up before the justice of his country, in the 30 
person of Mr. Alderman Goodchild, who weeps as he recog- 
nizes 'his old brother 'prentice, as Tom's one-eyed friend 
peaches on him, and the clerk makes out the poor rogue's 
ticket for Newgate. Then the end comes. Tom goes to 



176 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

Tyburn in a cart with a coffin in it ; whilst the Right Hon- 
orable Francis Goodchild, Lord Mayor of London, proceeds 
to his Mansion House, in his gilt coach with four footmen 
and a sword bearer, whilst the Companies of London march 
5 in the august procession, whilst the trainbands of the City 
fire their pieces and get drunk in his honor ; and — O crown- 
ing delight and glory of all — whilst his Majesty the King * 
looks out from his royal balcony, with his ribbon on his breast, 
and his Queen and his star by his side, at the corner house of 

10 Saint Paul's Churchyard. 

How the times have changed ! The new Post Office now 
not disadvantageously occupies that spot where the scaffold- 
ing is in the picture, where the tipsy trainband-man is lurch- 
ing against the post, with his wig over one eye, and the 

15 'prentice-boy is trying to kiss the pretty girl in the gallery. 
Passed away 'prentice-boy and pretty girl ! Passed away 
tipsy trainband-man with wig and bandolier ! On the spot 
where Tom Idle (for whom I have an unaffected pity) made 
his exit from this wicked world, and where you see the hang- 

20 man smoking his pipe as he reclines on the gibbet and views 
the hills of Harrow or Hampstead beyond, a splendid marble 
arch, a vast and modern city — clean, airy, painted drab, 
populous with nursery maids and children, the abode of wealth 
and comfort — the elegant, the prosperous, the polite Ty- 

25 burnia rises, the most respectable district in the habitable 
globe. 

In that last plate of the London Apprentices, in which the 

' apotheosis of the Right Honorable Francis Goodchild is 
drawn, a ragged fellow is represented in the corner of the 

30 simple, kindly piece, offering for sale a broadside, purporting 
to contain an account of the appearance of the ghost of Tom 
Idle executed at Tyburn. Could Tom's ghost have made its 
appearance in 1847, and not in 1747, what changes would 

* [Really Frederick, Prince of Wales, with the Princess of Wales.] 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 177 

have been remarked by that astonished escaped criminal ! 
Over that road which the hangman used to travel constantly, 
and the Oxford stage twice a week, go ten thousand carriages 
every day : over yonder road, by which Dick Turpin fled to 
Windsor, and Squire Western journeyed into town, when he 5 
came to take up his quarters at the ''Hercules Pillars" on 
the outskirts of London, what a rush of civilization and order 
flows now ! What armies of gentlemen with umbrellas 
march to banks, and chambers, and countinghouses ! What 
regiments of nursery maids and pretty infantry, what peace- 10 
ful processions of policemen, what light broughams and what 
gay carriages, what swarms of busy apprentices and artificers, 
riding on omnibus-roofs, pass daily and hourly ! Tom Idle's 
times are quite changed : many of the institutions gone into 
disuse which were admired in his day. There's more pity 15 
and kindness and a better chance for poor Tom's successors 
now than at that simpler period when Fielding hanged him 
and Hogarth drew him. 

To the student of history, these admirable works must be 
invaluable, as they give us the most complete and truthful 20 
picture of the manners, and even the thoughts, of the past 
century. We look, and see pass before us the England of 
a hundred years ago — the peer in his drawing-room, that 
lady of fashion in her apartment, foreign singers surrounding 
her, and the chamber filled with gewgaws in the mode of the 25 
day; the church, with its quaint florid architecture and 
singing congregation ; the parson w4th his great wig, and 
the beadle with his cane : all these are represented before us, 
and we are sure of the truth of the portrait. We see how 
the Lord Mayor dines in state ; how the prodigal drinks and 30 
sports at the bagnio ; how the poor girl beats hemp in Bride- 
well; how the thief divides his booty and drinks his punch 
at the night-cellar, and how he finishes his career at the gibbet. 
We may depend upon the perfect accuracy of these strange 



178 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

and varied portraits of the bygone generation : we see one 
of Walpole's Members of Parliament chaired after his elec- 
tion, and the lieges celebrating the event, and drinking con- 
fusion to the Pretender: we see the grenadiers and train- 
$ bands of the City marching out to meet the enemy ; and have 
before us, with sword and firelock, and "White Hanoverian 
Horse" embroidered on the cap, the very figures of the men 
who ran away with Johnny Cope, and who conquered at 
Culloden. The Yorkshire wagon rolls into the inn yard; 

10 the country parson, in his jack-boots, and his bands and short 
cassock, comes trotting into town, and we fancy it is Parson 
Adams, with his sermons in his pocket. The Salisbury fly 
sets forth from the old "Angel" — you see the passengers 
entering the great heavy vehicle, up the wooden steps, their 

15 hats tied down with handkerchiefs over their faces, and under 
their arms, sword, hanger, and case-bottle ; the landlady — 
apoplectic with the liquors in her own bar — is tugging at 
the bell ; the hunchbacked postilion — he may have ridden 
the leaders to Humphrey Clinker — is begging a gratuity ; 

20 the miser is grumbling at the bill ; Jack of the " Centurion '* 
lies on the top of the clumsy vehicle, with a soldier by his 
side * — it may be Smollett's Jack Hatchway — it has a 
likeness to Lismahago. You see the suburban fair and the 
strolHng company of actors; the pretty milkmaid singing 

25 under the windows of the enraged French musician : it is 
such a girl as Steele charmingly described in the Guardian, 
a few years before this date,t singing, under Mr. Ironside's 
window in Shire Lane, her pleasant carol of a May morning. 
You see noblemen and blacklegs bawling and betting in the 

30 Cockpit : you see Garrick as he was arrayed in "King Rich- 
ard"; Macheath and Polly in the dresses which they wore 
when they charmed our ancestors, and when noblemen in 

* [The commentators say that the soldier is a Frenchman.] 

t [The Guardian ended in 17 13. The "enraged musician" is dated 1741.] 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 179 

blue ribbons sat on the stage and listened to their deUghtful 
music. You see the ragged French soldiery, in their white 
coats and cockades, at Calais Gate : they are of the regiment, 
very likely, which friend Roderick Random joined before he 
was rescued by his preserver Monsieur de Strap, with whom 5 
he fought on the famous day of Dettingen. You see the 
judges on the bench ; the audience laughing in the pit ; the 
student in the Oxford theater; the citizen on his country 
walk; you see Broughton the boxer, Sarah Malcolm the 
murderess, Simon Lovat the traitor, John Wilkes the dema- 10 
gogue, leering at you with that squint which has become 
historical, and that face which, ugly as it was, he said he 
could make as captivating to woman as the countenance of 
the handsomest beau in town. All these sights and people 
are with you. After looking in the "Rake's Progress" at 15 
Hogarth's picture of Saint James's Palace Gate, you may 
people the street, but little altered within these hundred 
years, with the gilded carriages and thronging chairmen that 
bore the courtiers your ancestors to Queen Caroline's drawing- 
room more than a hundred years ago. 20 
What manner of man * was he who executed these portraits 

* Hogarth (whose family name was Hogart) was the grandson of a West- 
moreland yeoman. His father came to London, and was an author and school- 
master. William was born loth November 1697, in the parish of Saint Martin, 
Ludgate. He was early apprenticed to an engraver of arms on plate. The 
following touches are from his Anecdotes of Himself (Edition of 1833) : — 

"As I had naturally a good eye, and a fondness for drawing, shows of all 
sorts gave me uncommon pleasure when an infant; and mimicry, common to. 
all children, was remarkable in me. An early access to a neighboring painter 
drew my attention from play ; and I was, at every possible opportunity, employed 
in making drawings. I picked up an acquaintance of the same turn, and soon 
learnt to draw the alphabet with great correctness. My exercises, when at school, 
were more remarkable for the ornaments which adorned them, than for the 
exercise itself. In the former, I soon found that blockheads with better mem- 
ories could much surpass me ; but for the latter I was particularly distin- 
guished. . . . 

"I thought it still more unlikely that by pursuing the common method, and 
copying old drawings, I could ever attain the power of making new designs, 



I So ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

— so various, so faithful, and so admirable ? In the National 
Collection of Pictures most of us have seen the best and most 

which was my first and greatest ambition. I therefore endeavored to habituate 
mj'self to the exercise of a sort of technical memory ; and by repeating in my 
own mind the parts of which objects were composed, I could by degrees com- 
bine and put them down with my pencil. Thus, with all the drawbacks which 
resulted from the circumstances I have mentioned, I had one material advantage 
over my competitors, viz. the early habit I thus acquired of retaining in my 
mind's eye, without coldly copying it on the spot, whatever I intended to imitate. 

"The instant I became master of my own time, I determined to qualify 
myself for engraving on copper. In this I readily got employment ; and frontis- 
pieces to books, such as prints to Hudibras, in twelves, &c., soon brought me 
into the way. But the tribe of booksellers remained as my father had left 
them . . . which put me upon publishing on my own account. But here again 
I had to encounter a monopoly of printsellers, equally mean and destructive 
to the ingenious; for the first plate I published, called 'The Taste of the Town,' 
in which the reigning follies were lashed, had no sooner begun to take a run, 
than I found copies of it in the print shops, vending at half price, while the 
original prints were returned to me again, and I was thus obliged to sell the 
plate for whatever these pirates pleased to give me, as there was no place of 
sale but at their shops. Owing to this, and other circumstances, by engraving, 
until I was nearly thirty, I could do little more than maintain myself ; bui even 
then I was a punctual paymaster. 

"I then married, and " 

[But William is going too fast here. He made a "stolen union," on March 
23, 1729, with Jane, daughter of Sir James Thornhill, sergeant-painter. For 
some time Sir James kept his heart and his purse strings close, but " soon after 
became both reconciled and generous to the young couple." — Hogarth's Works, 
by Nichols and Steevens, vol. i. p. 44.] 

" — commenced painter of small Conversation Pieces, from twelve to fifteen 
inches high. This, being a novelty, succeeded for a few years." 

[About this time Hogarth had summer lodgings at South Lambeth, and did 
all kinds of work, "embellishing" the "Spring Gardens" at "Vauxhall," and 
the like. In 1731 he published a satirical plate against Pope, founded on the 
well-known imputation against him of his having satirized the Duke of Chandos, 
under the name of Timon, in his poem on "Taste." The plate represented 
a view of Burlington House, with Pope whitewashing it, and bespattering the 
Duke of Chandos's coach. Pope made no retort, and has never mentioned 
Hogarth.] 

"Before I had done anything of much consequence in this walk, I enter- 
tained some hopes of succeeding in what the puflfers in books call The Great 
Style of History Painting; so that without having had a stroke of this grand 
business before, I quitted small portraits and familiar conversations, and with 
a smile at my own temerity, commenced history-painter, and on a great stair- 
case at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, painted two Scripture stories, the 'Pool 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING i8i 

carefully finished series of his comic paintings, and the por- 
trait of his own honest face, of which the bright blue eyes 

of Bethesda' and the 'Good Samaritan,' with figures seven feet high. . . . But 
as religion, the great promoter of this style in other countries, rejected it in 
England, I was unwiUing to sink into a portrait manufacturer ; and, still am- 
bitious of being singular, dropped all expectations of advantage from that 
source, and returned to the pursuit of my former deaUngs with the public at 
large. 

"As to portrait painting, the chief branch of the art by which a painter can 
procure himself a tolerable livelihood, and the only one by which a lover of 
money can get a fortune, a man of very moderate talents may have great success 
in it, as the artifice and address of a mercer is infinitely more useful than the 
abiUties of a painter. By the manner in which the present race of professors 
in England conduct it, that also becomes still life." 

"By this inundation of folly and puff" {he has been speaking of the success of 
Vanloo, who came over here in 1737), "I must confess I was much disgusted, 
and determined to try if by any means I could stem the torrent, and, by opposing, 
end it. I laughed at the pretensions of these quacks in coloring, ridiculed their 
productions as feeble and contemptible, and asserted that it required neither 
taste nor talents to excel their most popular performances. This interference 
excited much enmity, because, as my opponents told me, my studies were in 
another way. 'You talk,' added they, 'with ineffable contempt of portrait- 
painting ; if it is so easy a task, why do not you convince the world by painting 
a portrait yourself?' Provoked at this language, I, one day at the Academy 
in St. Martin's Lane, put the following question : ' Supposing any man, at this 
time, v;ere to paint a portrait as well as Vandyke, would it be seen or acknowl- 
edged, and could the artist enjoy the benefit or acquire the reputation due to 
his performance ? ' 

"They asked me in reply, if I could paint one as well ; and I frankly answered, 
I believed I could. . . . 

"Of the mighty talents said to be requisite for portrait painting I had not 
the most exalted opinion." 

Let us now hear him on the question of the Academy : — 

"To pester the three great estates of the empire, about twenty or thirty, 
students drawing after a man or a horse, appears, as must be acknowledged, 
foolish enough: but the real motive is, that a few bustling characters, who 
have access to people of rank, think they can thus get a superiority over their 
brethren, be appointed to places, and have salaries, as in France, for telling a 
lad when a leg or an arm is too long or too short. . . . 

"France, ever aping the magnificence of other nations, has in its turn as- 
sumed a foppish kind of splendor sufficient to dazzle the eyes of the neighboring 
states, and draw vast sums of money from this country. . . . 

"To return to our Royal Academy: I am told that one of their leading 
objects will be, sending young men abroad to study the antique statues, for 



1 82 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

shine out from the canvas and give you an idea of that keen 
and brave look with which WiUiam Hogarth regarded the 

such kind of studies may sometimes improve an exalted genius, but they will 
not create it; and whatever has been the cause, this same traveling to Italy 
has, in several instances that I have seen, seduced the student from nature and 
led him to paint marble figures, in which he has availed himself of the great 
works of antiquity, as a coward does when he puts on the armor of an Alexander ; 
for, with similar pretensions and similar vanity, the painter supposes he shall 
be adored as a second Raphael Urbino." 

We must now hear him on his " Sigismunda : " — 

"As the most violent and virulent abuse thrown on 'Sigismunda' was from 
a set of miscreants, with whom I am proud of having been ever at war — I 
mean the expounders of the mysteries of old pictures — I have been sometimes 
told they were beneath my notice. This is true of them individually ; but as 
they have access to people of rank, who seem as happy in being cheated as these 
merchants are in cheating them, they have a power of doing much mischief to 
a modern artist. However mean the vendor of poisons, the mineral is destruc- 
tive : — to me its operation was troublesome enough. Ill nature spreads so fast 
that now was the time for every httle dog in the profession to bark ! " 

Next comes a characteristic account of his controversy with Wilkes and 
Churchill. 

"The stagnation rendered it necessary that I should do some timed thing, 
to recover my lost time, and stop a gap in my income. This drew forth my 
print of 'The Times,' a subject which tended to the restoration of peace and 
unanimity, and put the opposers of these humane objects in a light which gave 
great offense to those who were trying to foment disaffection in the minds of 
the populace. One of the most notorious of them, till now my friend and flat- 
terer, attacked me in the North Briton, in so infamous and malign a style, that 
he himself, when pushed even by his best friends, was driven to so poor an 
excuse as to say he was drunk when he wrote it. . . . 

"This renowned patriot's portrait, drawn like as I could as to features, and 
marked with some indications of his mind, fully answered my purpose. The 
ridiculous was apparent to every eye ! A Brutus ! A saviour of his country 
with such an aspect — was so arrant a farce, that though it gave rise to much 
laughter in the lookers-on, galled both him and his adherents to the bone. . . . 

"Churchill, Wilkes's toad-echo, put the North Briton attack into verse, in 
an Epistle to Hogarth ; but as the abuse was precisely the same, except a little 
poetical heightening, which goes for nothing, it made no impression. . . . 
However, having an old plate by me, with some parts ready, such as the back- 
ground and a dog, I began to consider how I could turn so much work laid 
aside to some account, and so patched up a print of Master Churchill in the 
character of a Bear. The pleasure and pecuniary advantage which I derived 
from these two engravings, together with occasionally riding on horseback, re- 
stored me to as much health as can be expected at my time of life." 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 183 

world. No man was ever less of a hero ; you see him before 
you, and can fancy what he was — a jovial, honest London 
citizen, stout and sturdy; a hearty, plain-spoken man,* 
loving his laugh, his friend, his glass, his roast beef of Old 
England, and having a proper bourgeois scorn for French 5 
frogs, for mounseers, and wooden shoes in general, for foreign 
fiddlers, foreign singers, and, above all, for foreign painters, 
whom he held in the most amusing contempt. 

It must have been great fun to hear him rage against Cor- 
reggio and the Caracci ; to watch him thump the table and lo 
snap his fingers, and say, "Historical painters be hanged! 
here's the man that will paint against any of them for a 
hundred pounds. Correggio's 'Sigismunda' ! Look at Bill 
Hogarth's ' Sigismunda ' ; look at my altarpiece at Saint 
Mary Redcliffe, Bristol; look at my 'Paul before Felix,' 15 
and see whether I'm not as good as the best of them." f 

* "It happened, in the early part of Hogarth's life, that a nobleman who 
was uncommonly ugly and deformed came to sit to him for his picture. It was 
executed with a skill that did honor to the artist's abiUties; but the likeness 
was rigidly observed, without even the necessary attention to compliment or 
flattery. The peer, disgusted at this counterpart of himself, never once thought 
of paying for a reflection that would only disgust him with his deformities. 
Some time was siiffered to elapse before the artist applied for his money ; but 
afterwards many applications were made by him (who had then no need of a 
banker) for payment, without success. The painter, however, at last hit upon 
an expedient. ... It was couched in the following card : — 

'"Mr. Hogarth's dutiful respects to Lord . Finding that he does not 

mean to have the picture which was drawn for him, is informed again of Mr. 
Hogarth's necessity for the money. If, therefore, his Lordship does not send 
for it, in three days it will be disposed of, with the addition of a tail, and some 
other little appendages, to Mr. Hare, the famous wild-beast man : Mr. Hogarth 
having given that gentleman a conditional promise of it, for an exhibition- 
picture, on his Lordship's refusal.' 

"This intimation had the desired effect." — Works by Nichols and Stee- 
VENS, vol. i. p. 25. 

t "Garrick himself was not more ductile to flattery. A word in favor of 
'Sigismunda' might have commanded a proof-print or forced an original print 
out of our artist's hands. ... 

"The following authenticated story of our artist (furnished by the late Mr. 
Belchier, F.R.S., a surgeon of eminence) will also serve to show how much 



1 84 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

Posterity has not quite confirmed honest Hogarth's opinion 
about his talents for the subHme. Although Swift could not 
see the difference between tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum, 
posterity has not shared the Dean's contempt for Handel; 
5 the world has discovered a difference between tweedle-dee 
and tweedle-dum, and given a hearty applause and admiration 
to Hogarth, too, but not exactly as a painter of scriptural 
subjects, or as a rival of Correggio. It does not take away 
from one's liking for the man, or from the moral of his story, 

lo or the humor of it — from one's admiration for the prodigious 
merit of his performances, to remember that he persisted to 
the last in believing that the world was in a conspiracy against 
him with respect to his talents as an historical painter, and 
that a set of miscreants, as he called them, were employed to 

15 run his genius down. They say it was Liston's firm belief, 
that he was a great and neglected tragic actor ; they say that 
every one of us believes in his heart, or would Uke to have 
others believe, that he is something which he is not. One of 
the most notorious of the "miscreants," Hogarth says, was 

20 Wilkes, who assailed him in the North Briton; the other was 
Churchill, who put the North Briton attack into heroic verse, 
and published his "Epistle to Hogarth." Hogarth replied 
by that caricature of Wilkes, in which the patriot still figures 
before us, with his Satanic grin and squint, and by a carica- 

25 ture of Churchill, in which he is represented as a bear with 

more easy it is to detect ill-placed or hyperbolical adulation respecting others, 
than when applied to ourselves. Hogarth, being at dinner with the great 
Cheselden and some other company, was told that Mr. John Freke, surgeon of 
St. Bartholomew's Hospital, a few evenings before at Dick's Coffeehouse, had 
asserted that Greene was as eminent in composition as Handel. 'That fellow 
Freke,' replied Hogarth, 'is always shooting his bolt absurdly, one way or an- 
other. Handel is a giant in music ; Greene only a light Florimel kind of a com- 
poser.' 'Ay,' says our artist's informant, 'but at the same time Mr. Freke 
declared you were as good a portrait-painter as Vandyke.' 'There he was 

right,' adds Hogarth, 'and so, by G , I am, give me my time and let me 

choose my subject.'" — Works, by Nichols and Steevens, vol. i. pp. 236, 237. 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 185 

a staff, on which lie the first, lie the second — lie the tenth, 
are engraved in unmistakable letters. There is very little 
mistake about honest Hogarth's satire : if he has to paint a 
man with his throat cut, he draws him with his head almost 
off ; and he tried to do the same for his enemies in this little 5 
controversy. "Having an old plate by me," says he, "with 
some parts ready, such as the background, and a dog, I be- 
gan to consider how I could turn so much work laid aside to 
some account, and so patched up a print of Master Church- 
ill, in the character of a bear ; the pleasure and pecuniary 10 
advantage which I derived from these two engravings, to- 
gether with occasionally riding on horseback, restored me to 
as much health as I can expect at my time of life." 

And so he concludes his queer little book of Anecdotes : "I 
have gone through the circumstances of a life which till lately 15 
passed pretty much to my own satisfaction, and I hope in no 
respect injurious to any other man. This I may safely assert, 
that I have done my best to make those about me tolerably 
happy, and my greatest enemy cannot say I ever did an in- 
tentional injury. What may follow, God knows." * 20 

A queer account still exists of a holiday jaunt taken by 
Hogarth and four friends of his, who set out like the redoubted 
Mr. Pickwick and his companions, but just a hundred years 
before those heroes; and made an excursion to Gravesend, 
Rochester, Sheerness, and adjacent places, f One of the 25 
gentlemen noted down the proceedings of the journey, for 
which Hogarth and a brother artist made drawings. The 
book is chiefly curious at this moment from showing the citi- 

* Of Hogarth's kindliness of disposition, the story of his rescue of the drum- 
mer-girl from the rufl&an at Southwark Fair is an illustration ; and in this case 
virtue was not its own reward, since her pretty face afterwards served him for 
a model in many a picture. 

t He made this excursion in 1732, his companions being John Thornhill (son 
of Sir James), Scott the landscape painter, Tothall, and Forrest. [The account 
was first published in 1782, and is in the third volume of the " Genuine Works," 
1817.J 



i86 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

zen life of those days, and the rough jolly style of merriment, 
not of the five companions merely, but of thousands of jolly 
fellows of their time. Hogarth and his friends, quitting the 
''Bedford Arms," Covent Garden, with a song, took water to 

5 Billingsgate, exchanging compliments with the bargemen as 
they went down the river. At Billingsgate Hogarth made 
a "caracatura" of a facetious porter, called the Duke of 
Puddledock, who agreeably entertained the party with the 
humors of the place. Hence they took a Gravesend boat for 

lo themselves ; had straw to lie upon, and a tilt over their heads, 
they say, and went down the river at night, sleeping and sing- 
ing jolly choruses. 

They arrived at Gravesend at six, when they washed their 
faces and hands, and had their wigs powdered. Then they 

15 sallied forth for Rochester on foot, and drank by the way 
three pots of ale. At one o'clock they went to dinner with 
excellent port, and a quantity more beer, and afterwards 
Hogarth and Scott played at hopscotch in the town hall. It 
would appear that they slept most of them in one room, and 

20 the chronicler of the party describes them all as waking at 
seven o'clock, and telling each other their dreams. You 
have rough sketches by Hogarth of the incidents of this 
holiday excursion. The sturdy little painter is seen sprawl- 
ing over a plank to a boat at Gravesend ; the whole company 

25 are represented in one design, in a fisherman's room, where they 
had all passed the night. One gentleman in a nightcap is 
shaving himself ; another is being shaved by the fisherman ; 
a third, with a handkerchief over his bald pate, is taking his 
breakfast ; and Hogarth is sketching the whole scene. 

30 They describe at night how they returned to their quarters, 
drank to their friends, as usual, emptied several cans of good 
flip, all singing merrily. 

It is a jolly party of tradesmen engaged at high jinks. 
These were the manners and pleasures of Hogarth, of his 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 187 

time very likely, of men not very refined, but honest and 
merry. It is a brave London citizen, with John Bull habits, 
prejudices, and pleasures.* 

Of Smollett's associates and manner of life the author of 
the admirable "Humphrey Clinker" has given us an inter- 
esting account in that most amusing of novels. f 

* Doctor Johnson made four lines once, on the death of poor Hogarth, which 
were equally true and pleasing ; I know not why Garrick's were preferred to them : 

'"The hand of him here torpid lies. 
That drew th' essential forms of grace; 
Here, closed in death, th' attentive eyes, 
That saw the manners in the face.' " 

[Johnson's lines were only a suggested emendation upon the first form of the 
verses, submitted to him by Garrick for criticism. — Boswell's Johnson (Birk- 
beck Hill), i. 187.] 

"Mr. Hogarth, among the variety of kindnesses shown to me when I was 
too young to have a proper sense of them, was used to be very earnest that 
I should obtain the acquaintance, and if possible the friendship, of Doctor 
Johnson ; whose conversation was, to the talk of other men, like Titian's painting 
compared to Hudson's, he said: 'but don't you tell people now that I say so,' 
continued he, ' for the connoisseurs and I are at war, you know ; and because I 
hate them, they think I hate Titian — and let them ! ' . . . Of Dr. Johnson, 
when my father and he were talking about him one day, 'That man,' says Ho- 
garth, 'is not contented with beUeving the Bible ; but he fairly resolves, I think, 
to believe nothing hut the Bible. Johnson,' added he, 'thought so wise a fellow, is 
more like King David than King Solomon, for he says in his haste, All men are 
liars. '' " — Mrs. Piozzi. 

Hogarth died on the 26th of October 1764. The day before his death, he 
was removed from his villa at Chiswick to Leicester Fields, "in a very weak 
condition, yet remarkably cheerful." He had just received an agreeable letter 
from Franklin. He lies buried at Chiswick. 

t To Sir Watkin Phillips, Bart., of Jesus College, Oxon 

" Dear Phillips, — In my last, I mentioned my having spent an evening 
with a society of authors, who seemed to be jealous and afraid of one another. 
My uncle was not at all surprised to hear me say I was disappointed in their 
conversation. 'A man may be very entertaining and instructive upon paper,' 
said he, 'and exceedingly dull in common discourse. I have observed, that 
those who shine most in private company are but secondary stars in the con- 
stellation of genius. A small stock of ideas is more easily managed, and sooner 
displayed, than a great quantity crowded together. There is very seldom any- 
thing extraordinary in the appearance and address of a good writer ; whereas a 



1 88 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

I have no doubt that this picture by Smollett is as faith- 
ful a one as any from the pencil of his kindred humorist, 
Hogarth. 

We have before us, and painted by his own hand, Tobias 
5 Smollett, the manly, kindly, honest, and irascible ; worn and 

dull author generally distinguishes himself by some oddity or extravagance. For 
this reason I fancy that an assembly of grubs must be very diverting.' 

"My curiosity being excited by this hint, I consulted my friend Dick Ivy, 
who undertook to gratify it the very next day, which was Sunday last. He 

carried me to dine with S , whom you and I have long known by his writings. 

He lives in the skirts of the town; and every Sunday his house is open to all 
imfortunate brothers of the quill, whom he treats with beef, pudding, and 
potatoes, port, punch, and Calvert's entire butt beer. He has fixed upon the 
first day of the week for the exercise of his hospitality, because some of his 
guests could not enjoy it on any other, for reasons that I need not explain. I 
was civilly received in a plain, yet decent habitation, which opened backwards 
into a very pleasant garden, kept in excellent order ; and, indeed, I saw none of 
the outward signs of authorship either in the house or the landlord, who is one 
of those few writers of the age that stand upon their own foundation, without 
patronage, and above dependence. If there was nothing characteristic in the 
entertainer, the company made ample amends for his want of singularity. 

"At two in the afternoon, I found myself one of ten messmates seated at 
table ; and I question if the whole kingdom could produce such another assem- 
blage of originals. Among their peculiarities, I do not mention those of dress, which 
may be purely accidental. What struck me were oddities originally produced 
by affectation, and afterwards confirmed by habit. One of them wore spectacles 
at dinner, and another his hat flapped; though (as Ivy told me) the first was 
noted for having a seaman's eye when a bailiff was in the wind ; and the other 
was never known to labor under any weakness or defect of vision, except about 
five years ago, when he was complimented with a couple of black eyes by a player, 
with whom he had quarreled in his drink. A third wore a laced stocking, and 
made use of crutches, because, once in his life, he had been laid up with a broken 
leg, though no man could leap over a stick with more agility. A fourth had con- 
tracted such an antipathy to the country, that he insisted upon sitting with his 
back towards the window that looked into the garden ; and when a dish of cauli- 
flower was set upon the table, he snuffed up volatile salts to keep him from 
fainting ; yet this delicate person was the son of a cottager, born under a hedge, 
and had many years run wild among asses on a common. A fifth affected dis- 
traction ; when spoke to, he always answered from the purpose. Sometimes he 
suddenly started up, and rapped out a dreadful oath ; sometimes he burst out 
a laughing ; then he folded his arms, and sighed ; and then he hissed like fifty 
serpents. 

"At first, I really thought he was mad; and, as he sat near me, began to 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 189 

battered, but still brave and full of heart, after a long struggle 
against a hard fortune. His brain had been busied with a 
hundred different schemes; he had been reviewer and his- 
torian, critic, medical writer, poet, pamphleteer. He had 
fought endless literary battles ; and braved and wielded for 5 

be under some apprehensions for my own safety ; when our landlord, perceiving 
me alarmed, assured me aloud that I had nothing to fear. 'The gentleman,' 
said he, ' is trying to act a part for which he is by no means qualified ; if he had 
all the inclination in the world, it is not in his power to be mad ; his spirits 
are too flat to be kindled into phrenzy.' "Tis no bad p-p-puff, how-owever,' 
observed a person in a tarnished laced coat : ' aff-ffected m-madness w-ill p-pass 
for w-wit w-with nine-nineteen out of t-twenty.' 'And affected stuttering for 
humor,' replied our landlord; 'though, God knows ! there is no affinity between 
them.' It seems this wag, after having made some abortive attempts in plain 
speaking, had recourse to this defect, by means of which he frequently extorted 
the laugh of the company, without the least expense of genius ; and that imper- 
fection, which he had at first counterfeited, was now become so habitual, that 
he could not lay it aside. 

"A certain winking genius, who wore yellow gloves at dinner, had, on his 

first introduction, taken such offense at Si , because he looked and talked, 

and ate and drank, like any other man, that he spoke contemptuously of his 
vmderstanding ever after, and never would repeat his visit, until he had exhibited 
the following proof of his caprice. Wat Wyvil, the poet, having made some 

unsuccessful advances towards an intimacy with S , at last gave him to 

understand, by a third person, that he had written a poem in his praise, and 
a satire against his person : that if he would admit him to his house, the first 
should be immediately sent to press ; but that if he persisted in declining his 

friendship, he would publish the satire without delay. S ■ replied, that he 

looked upon Wyvil's panegyric as, in effect, a species of infamy, and would resent 
it accordingly with a good cudgel ; but if he published the satire, he might deserve 
his compassion, and had nothing to fear from his revenge. Wyvil having con- 
sidered the alternative, resolved to mortify S by printing the panegyric, for 

which he received a sound drubbing. Then he swore the peace against the ag- 
gressor, who, in order to avoid a prosecution at law, admitted him to his good 
graces. It was the singularity in S 's conduct on this occasion, that recon- 
ciled him to the yellow-gloved philosopher, who owned he had some genius; 
and from that period cultivated his acquaintance. 

"Curious to know upon what subjects the several talents of my fellow-guests 
were employed, I applied to my communicative friend Dick Ivy, who gave me to 
imderstand that most of them were, or had been, understrappers, or journey- 
men, to more creditable authors, for whom they translated, collated, and compiled, 
in the business of bookmaking; and that all of them had, at different times, 
labored in the service of our landlord, though they had now set up for themselves 



I go ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

years the cudgels of controversy. It was a hard and savage 
fight in those days, and a niggard pay. He was oppressed 
by illness, age, narrow fortune ; but his spirit was still reso- 
lute, and his courage steady; the battle over, he could do 
5 justice to the enemy with whom he had been so fiercely en- 

in various departments of literature. Not only their talents, but also their 
nations and dialects, were so various, that our conversation resembled the con- 
fusion of tongues at Babel. We had the Irish brogue, the Scotch accent, and 
foreign idiom, twanged off by the most discordant vociferation ; for as they all 
spoke together, no man had any chance to be heard, unless he could bawl louder 
than his fellows. It must be owned, however, there was nothing pedantic in their 
discourse; they carefully avoided all learned disquisitions, and endeavored 
to be facetious : nor did their endeavors always miscarry ; some droll repartee 
passed, and much laughter was excited; and if any individual lost his temper 
so far as to transgress the bounds of decorum, he was effectually checked by the 
master of the feast, who exerted a sort of paternal authority over this irritable 
tribe. 

"The most learned philosopher of the whole collection, who had been ex- 
pelled the university for atheism, has made great progress in a refutation of 
Lord Bolingbroke's metaphysical works, which is said to be equally ingenious 
and orthodox ; but, in the meantime, he has been presented to the grand jury 
as a public nuisance for having blasphemed in an alehouse on the Lord's day: 
The Scotchman gives lectures on the pronunciation of the English language, 
which he is now publishing by subscription. 

"The Irishman is a poUtical writer, and goes by the name of My Lord 
Potatoe. He wrote a pamphlet in vindication of a Minister, hoping his zeal 
would be rewarded with some place or pension; but finding himself neglected 
in that quarter, he whispered about that the pamphlet was written by the 
Minister himself, and he published an answer to his own production. In this 
he addressed the author vuider the title of 'your Lordship,' with such solemnity, 
that the public swallowed the deceit, and bought up the whole impression. The 
wise pohticians of the metropolis declared they were both masterly performances, 
and chuckled over the flimsy reveries of an ignorant garreteer, as the profound 
speculations of a veteran statesman, acquainted with all the secrets of the cabinet. 
The imposture was detected in the sequel, and our Hibernian pamphleteer 
retains no part of his assumed importance but the bare title of 'my Lord,' and 
the upper part of the table at the potatoe-ordinary in Shoe Lane. 

"Opposite to me sat a Piedmontese, who had obliged the public with a 
humorous satire, entitled The Balance of the English Poets; a performance which 
evinced the great modesty and taste of the author, and, in particular, his inti- 
macy with the elegancies of the English language. The sage, who labored 
under the aypo<l)o^ia, or 'horror of green fields,' had just finished a treatise on 
practical agriculture, though, in fact, he had never seen corn growing in his life, 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 191 

gaged, and give a not unfriendly grasp to the hand that had 
mauled him. He is like one of those Scotch cadets, of whom 
history gives us so many examples, and whom, with a national 
fidelity, the great Scotch novelist has painted so charmingly. 
Of gentle birth * and narrow means, going out from his north- 5 

and was so ignorant of grain, that our entertainer, in the face of the whole com- 
pany, made him own that a plate of hominy was the best rice pudding he had 
ever eat. 

"The stutterer had almost finished his travels through Europe and part' of 
Asia, without ever budging beyond the liberties of the King's Bench, except in 
term-time with a tipstaff for his companion ; and as for little Tim Cropdale, the 
most facetious member of the whole society, he had happily wound up the catas- 
trophe of a virgin tragedy, from the exhibition of which he promised himself 
a large fund of profit and reputation. Tim had made shift to live many years 
by writing novels, at the rate of five pounds a volume; but that branch of 
business is now engrossed by female authors, who publish merely for the prop- 
agation of virtue, with so much ease, and spirit, and delicacy, and knowledge 
of the human heart, and all in the serene tranquillity of high life, that the reader 
is not only enchanted by their genius, but reformed by their morality. 

"After dinner, we adjourned into the garden, where I observed Mr. S 

give a short separate audience to every individual in a small remote filbert-walk, 
from whence most of them dropped off one after another, without further 
ceremony." 

Smollett's house was in Lawrence Lane, Chelsea, and is now destroyed. — 
See Handbook of London, p. 115. 

"The person of Smollett was eminently handsome, his features prepossess- 
ing, and, by the joint testimony of all his surviving friends, his conversation, in 
the highest degree, instructive and amusing. Of his disposition, those who have 
read his works (and who has not ?) may form a very accurate estimate ; for in 
each of them he has presented, and sometimes xmder various points of view, the 
leading features of his own character without disguising the most unfavorable 
of them. . . . When unseduced by his satirical propensities, he was kind, 
generous, and humane to others; bold, upright, and independent in his own 
character; stooped to no patron, sued for no favor, but honestly and honor- 
ably maintained himself on his literary labors. ... He was a doting father 
and an affectionate husband; and the warm zeal with which his memory was 
cherished by his surviving friends showed clearly the reliance which they placed 
upon his regard." — Sir Walter Scott. 

* Smollett of Bonhill, in Dumbartonshire. Arms, azure, a bend, or, between 
a lion rampant, ppr., holding in his paw a banner, argent, and a bugle horn, 
also ppr. Crest, an oak tree, ppr. Motto, Viresco. 

Smollett's father, Archibald, was the fourth son of Sir James Smollett of 
Bonhill, a Scotch Judge and Member of ParHament, and one of the commis- 



192 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

ern home to win his fortune in the world, and to fight his way, 
armed with courage, hunger, and keen wits. His crest is a 
shattered oak tree, with green leaves yet springing from it. 
On his ancient coat-of-arms there is a lion and a horn ; this 
5 shield of his was battered and dinted in a hundred fights and 
brawls,* through which the stout Scotchman bore it courage- 

sioners for framing the Union with England. Archibald married, without the 
old gentleman's consent, and died early, leaving his children dependent on their 
grandfather. Tobias, the second son, was born in 1721, in the old house of 
Dalquharn in the valley of Leven; and all his life loved and admired that 
valley and Loch Lomond beyond all the valleys and lakes in Europe. He 
learned the "rudiments" at Dumbarton Grammar School, and studied at 
Glasgow. 

But when he was only ten, his grandfather died, and left him without pro- 
vision (figuring as the old judge in Roderick Random in consequence, according 
to Sir Walter) . Tobias, armed with the Regicide, a Tragedy — a provision pre- 
cisely similar to that with which Doctor Johnson had started, just before — came 
up to London. The Regicide came to no good, though at first patronized by 
Lord Lyttelton ("one of those little fellows who are sometimes called great 
men," Smollett says); and Smollett embarked as "surgeon's mate" on board 
a line-of -battle ship, and served in the Carthagena expedition, in 174 1. He 
left the service in the West Indies, and, after residing some time in Jamaica, 
returned to England in 1746. 

He was now unsuccessful as a physician, to begin with ; published the satires, 
Advice and Reproof, without any luck; and (1747) married the "beautiful and 
accomphshed Miss Lascelles." 

In 1748 he brought out his Roderick Random, which at once made a "hit." 
The subsequent events of his life may be presented, chronologically, in a bird's- 
eye view : — 

1750. Made a tour to Paris, where he chiefly wrote Peregrine Pickle. 

1751. VxihW^YitA Peregrine Pickle. 

1753. Published Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom. 

1755. PubHshed version of Don Quixote. 

1756. Began the Critical Review. 
1758. PubHshed his History of England. 

1763-1766. TraveUng in France and Italy; pubUshed his Travels. 

1769. Published Adventures of an Atom. 

1770. Set out for Italy ; died at Leghorn, 21st of October 1 771, in the fifty- 
first year of his age. 

* A good specimen of the old "slashing" style of writing is presented by 
the paragraph on Admiral Knowles, which subjected Smollett to prosecution 
and imprisonment. The admiral's defense on the occasion of the failure of the 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 193 

ously. You see somehow that he is a gentleman, through all 
his battling and struggling, his poverty, his hard-fought 
successes, and his defeats. His novels are retoUections of his 
own adventures; his characters drawn, as I should think, 
from personages with whom he became acquainted in his 5 
own career of life. Strange companions he must have had; 
queer acquaintances he made in the Glasgow College — in 
the country apothecary's shop ; in the gun room of the man-of- 

Rochefort expedition came to be examined before the tribunal of the Critical 
Review. 

"He is," said our author, "an admiral without conduct, an engineer with- 
out knowledge, an officer without resolution, and a man without veracity !" 

Three months' imprisonment in the King's Bench avenged this stinging 
paragraph. 

But the Critical was to Smollett a perpetual fountain of " hot water." Among 
less important controversies may be mentioned that with Grainger, the transla- 
tor of TibuUus. Grainger replied in a pamphlet; and in the next number of 
the Review we find him threatened with "castigation," as an "owl that has 
broken from his mew !"- 

In Doctor Moore's biography of him is a pleasant anecdote. After publish- 
ing the Don Quixote, he returned to Scotland to pay a visit to his mother : — 

"On Smollett's arrival, he was introduced to his mother with the connivance 
of Mrs. Telfer (her daughter), as a gentleman from the West Indies, who was 
intimately acquainted with her son. The better to support his assumed char- 
acter, he endeavored to preserve a serious countenance, approaching to a frown ; 
but while his mother's eyes were riveted on his countenance, he could not refrain 
from smiling: she immediately sprung from her chair, and throwing her arms 
round his neck, exclaimed, ' Ah, my son ! my son ! I have found you at last ! ' 

"She afterwards told him, that if he had kept his austere looks and continued 
to gloom, he might have escaped detection some time longer, but 'your old 
roguish smile,' added she, 'betrayed you at once.' 

"Shortly after the publication of The Adventures of an Atom, disease again 
attacked Smollett with redoubled violence. Attempts being vainly made to 
obtain for him the office of Consul in some part of the Mediterranean, he was 
compelled to seek a warmer climate, without better means of provision than his 
own precarious finances could afford. The kindness of his distinguished friend 
and countryman, Dr. Armstrong (then abroad), procured for Dr. and Mrs. 
Smollett a house at Monte Nero, a village situated on the side of a mountain 
overlooking the sea, in the neighborhood of Leghorn, a romantic and salutary 
abode, where he prepared for the press the last, and, like music ' sweetest in the 
close,' the most pleasing of his compositions. The Expedition of Humphrey 
Clinker. This delightful work was published in 177 1." — Sir Walter Scott. 



194 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

war where he served as surgeon ; and in the hard life on shore, 
where the sturdy adventurer struggled for fortune. He did 
not invent much* as I fancy, but had the keenest perceptive 
faculty, and described what he saw mth wonderful relish 
sand delightful broad humor. I think Uncle Bowling, in 
" Roderick Random," is as good a character as Squire Western 
himself ; and Mr. Morgan, the Welsh apothecary, is as pleas- 
ant as Doctor Caius. What man who has made his inesti- 
mable acquaintance — what novel-reader who loves Don 

lo Quixote and Major Dalgetty — will refuse his most cordial 
acknowledgments to the admirable Lieutenant Lismahago? 
The novel of "Humphrey Clinker" is, I do think, the most 
laughable story that has ever been written since the goodly 
art of novel writing began. Winifred Jenkins and Tabitha 

15 Bramble must keep Englishmen on the grin for ages yet to 
come ; and in their letters and the story of their loves there is 
a perpetual fount of sparkling laughter, as inexhaustible as 
Bladud's well. 

Fielding, too, has described, though with a greater hand, 
20 the characters and scenes which he knew and saw. He had 
more than ordinary opportunities for becoming acquainted 
with life. His family and education, first — his fortunes and 
misfortunes afterwards, brought him into the society of every 
rank and condition of man. He is himself the hero of his 
25 books : he is wild Tom Jones, he is wild Captain Booth ; less 
wild, I am glad to think, than his predecessor : at least heart- 
ily conscious of demerit, and anxious to amend. 

When Fielding first came upon the town in 1727, the recol- 
lection of the great wits was still fresh in the coffeehouses 
30 and assemblies, and the judges there declared that young 
Harry Fielding had more spirits and wit than Congreve or 
any of his brilliant successors. His figure was tall and stal- 
wart ; his face handsome, manly, and noble-looking ; to the 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 195 

very last days of his life he retained a grandeur of air, and 
although worn down by disease, his aspect and presence 
imposed respect upon the people round about him. 

A dispute took place between Mr. Fielding and the cap- 
tain * of the ship in which he was making his last voyage, and 5 
Fielding relates how the man finally went down on his knees, 
and begged his passenger's pardon. He was living up to the 
last days of his life, and his spirit never gave in. His vital 
power must have been immensely strong. Lady Mary 
Wortley Montaguf prettily characterizes Fielding and this 10 
capacity for happiness which he possessed, in a httle notice 
of his death when she compares him to Steele, who was as 
improvident and as happy as he was, and says that both 

* The dispute with the captain arose from the wish of that functionary to 
intrude on his right to his cabin, for which he had paid thirty po\mds. After 
recounting the circumstances of the apology, he characteristically adds : — • 

"And here, that I may not be thought the sly trumpeter of my own praises, 
I do utterly disclaim all praise on the occasion. Neither did the greatness of 
my mind dictate, nor the force of my Christianity exact this forgiveness. To 
speak truth, I forgave him from a motive which would make men much more 
forgiving, if they were much wiser than they are : because it was convenient for 
me so to do." 

t Lady Mary was his second cousin — their respective grandfathers being sons 
of George Fielding, Earl of Desmond, son of WilUam, Earl of Denbigh. 

In a letter dated just a week before his death, she says : — 

"H. Fielding has given a true picture of himseK and his first wife in the 
characters of Mr. and Mrs. Booth, some compliments to his own figure excepted ; 
and I am persuaded, several of the incidents he mentions are real matters of 
fact. I wonder he does not perceive Tom Jones and Mr. Booth are sorry 
scoundrels. . . . Fielding has really a fund of true humor, and was to be 
pitied at his first entrance into the world, having no choice, as he said himseK, 
but to be a hackney writer or a hackney coachman. His genius deserved a 
better fate ; but I cannot help blaming that continued indiscretion, to give it the 
softest name, that has run through his life, and I am afraid still remains. . . . 
Since I was born no original has appeared excepting Congreve, and Fielding, 
who would, I believe, have approached nearer to his excellences, if not forced 
by his necessities to publish without correction, and throw many productions 
into the world he would have thrown into the fire, if meat could have been got 
without money, or money without scribbling. ... I am sorry not to see any 
more of Peregrine Pickle's performances ; I wish you would tell me his name." — 
Letters and Works (Lord WharnclifEe's ed.), vol. iii, pp. 93, 94. 



196 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

should have gone on living forever. One can fancy the 
eagerness and gusto with which a man of Fielding's frame, 
with his vast health and robust appetite, his ardent spirits, 
his joyful humor, and his keen and healthy relish for life, 

5 must have seized and drunk that cup of pleasure which the 
town offered to him. Can any of my hearers remember the 
youthful feats of a college breakfast — the meats devoured 
and the cups quaffed in that Homeric feast ? I can call to 
mind some of the heroes of those youthful banquets, and 

10 fancy young Fielding from Leyden rushing upon the feast, 
with his great laugh, and immense healthy young appetite, 
eager and vigorous to enjoy. The young man's wit and 
manners made him friends everywhere : he lived with the 
grand Man's society of those days ; he was courted by peers 

15 and men of wealth and fashion. As he had a paternal allow- 
ance from his father. General Fielding, which, to use Henry's 
own phrase, any man might pay who would ; as he liked good 
wine, good clothes, and good company, which are all expen- 
sive articles to purchase, Harry Fielding began to run into 

20 debt, and borrow money in that easy manner in which Captain 
Booth borrows money in the novel : was in nowise particu- 
lar in accepting a few pieces from the purses of his rich friends, 
and bore down upon more than one of them, as Walpole tells 
us only too truly, for a dinner or a guinea. To supply himself 

25 with the latter, he began to write theatrical pieces, having 
already, no doubt, a considerable acquaintance amongst the 
Oldfields and Bracegirdles behind the scenes. He laughed 
at these pieces and scorned them. When the audience upon 
one occasion began to hiss a scene which he was too lazy to 

30 correct, and regarding which, when Garrick remonstrated 
with him, he said that the public was too stupid to find out 
the badness of his work : when the audience began to hiss. 
Fielding said with characteristic coolness — "They have 
found it out, have they ? " He did not prepare his novels in 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 197 

this way, and with a very different care and interest laid the 
foundations and built up the edifices of his future fame. 

Time and shower have very little damaged those. The 
fashion and ornaments are, perhaps, of the architecture of 
that age, but the buildings remain strong and lofty, and of 5 
admirable proportions — masterpieces of genius and monu- 
ments of workmanlike skill. 

I cannot offer or hope to make a hero of Harry Fielding. 
Why hide his faults ? Why conceal his weaknesses in a cloud 
of periphrases? Why not show him, like him as he is, not 10 
robed in a marble toga, and draped and polished in an heroic 
attitude, but with inked ruffles, and claret stains on his 
tarnished laced coat, and on his manly face the marks of good 
fellowship, of illness, of kindness, of care and wine ? Stained 
as you see him, and worn by care and dissipation, that man 15 
retains some of the most precious and splendid human quali- 
ties and endowments. He has an admirable natural love of 
truth, the keenest instinctive antipathy to h5/pocrisy, the 
happiest satirical gift of laughing it to scorn. His wit is 
wonderfully wise and detective ; it flashes upon a rogue and 20 
lightens up a rascal like a policeman's lantern. He is one of 
the manliest and kindliest of human beings : in the midst of 
all his imperfections, he respects female innocence and in- 
fantine tenderness as you would suppose such a great- 
hearted, courageous soul would respect and care for them. He 25 
could not be so brave, generous, truth-telling as he is, were 
he not infinitely merciful, pitiful, and tender. He will give 
any man his purse — he can't help kindness and profusion. 
He may have low tastes, but not a mean mind ; he admires 
with all his heart good and virtuous men, stoops to no flattery, 30 
bears no rancor, disdains all disloyal arts, does his public duty 
uprightly, is fondly loved by his family, and dies at his work.* 

* He sailed for Lisbon, from Gravesend," on Sunday morning, June 30th, 
1754; and began The Journal of a Voyage during the passage. He died at 



198 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

If that theory be — and I have no doubt it is — the right 
and safe one, that human nature is always pleased with the 
spectacle of innocence rescued by fidelity, purity, and cour- 
age, I suppose that of the heroes of Fielding's three novels, 
5 we should like honest Joseph Andrews the best, and Captain 
Booth the second, and Tom Jones the third.* 

Joseph Andrews, though he wears Lady Booby's cast-off 
livery, is, I think, to the full as polite as Tom Jones in his 
fustian suit, or Captain Booth in regimentals. He has, like 

10 those heroes, large calves, broad shoulders, a high courage, 
and a handsome face. The accounts of Joseph's bravery and 
good qualities ; his voice, too musical to halloo to the dogs ; 
his bravery in riding races for the gentlemen of the county, 
and his constancy in refusing bribes and temptation, have 

15 something affecting in their naivete and freshness, and pre- 
possess one in favor of that handsome young hero. The 
rustic bloom of Fanny, and the delightful simplicity of Par- 
son Adams, are described with a friendliness which wins the 
reader of their story; we part from them with more regret 

20 than from Booth and Jones. 

Fielding, no doubt, began to write this novel in ridicule of 
''Pamela," for which work one can understand the hearty 
contempt and antipathy which such an athletic and boister- 
ous genius as Fielding's must have entertained. He couldn't 

25 do otherwise than laugh at the puny cockney bookseller, 
pouring out endless volumes of sentimental twaddle, and hold 
him up to scorn as a mollcoddle and a milksop. His genius 

Lisbon, in the beginning of October of the same year. He lies buried there, 
in the EngHsh Protestant churchyard, near the Estrella Church, with this 
inscription over him : 

"henricus fielding 

luget britannia gremio ngn dari 

fovere natum." 

* Fielding himself is said by Doctor Warton to have preferred Joseph Andrews 
to his other writings. 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 199 

had been nursed on sack posset, and not on dishes of tea. 
His muse had sung the loudest in tavern choruses, had seen 
the daylight streaming in over thousands of emptied bowls, . 
and reeled home to chambers on the shoulders of the watch- 
man. Richardson's goddess was attended by old maids and 5 
dowagers, and fed on muffins and bohea. "Milksop!" 
roars Harry Fielding, clattering at the timid shop shutters. 
"Wretch! Monster! Mohock!" shrieks the sentimental 
author of "Pamela";* and all the ladies of his court cackle 
out an affrighted chorus. Fielding proposes to write a book 10 
in ridicule of the author, whom he disliked and utterly scorned 
and laughed at ; but he is himself of so generous, jovial, and 
kindly a turn that he begins to like the characters which he 
invents, can't help making them manly and pleasant as well 
as ridiculous, and before he has done with them all, loves them 15 
heartily every one. 

Richardson's sickening antipathy for Harry Fielding is 
quite as natural as the other's laughter and contempt at the 
sentimentalist. I have not learned that these likings and dis- 
likings have ceased in the present day : and every author must 20 
lay his account not only to misrepresentation, but to honest 
enmity among critics, and to being hated and abused for good 
as well as for bad reasons. Richardson disliked Fielding's 
works quite honestly : Walpole quite honestly spoke of them 
as vulgar and stupid. Their squeamish stomachs sickened 25 
at the rough fare and the rough guests assembled at Field- 
ing's jolly revel. Indeed the cloth might have been cleaner : 

* "Richardson," says worthy Mrs. Barbauld, in her Memoir of him, pre- 
fixed to his Correspondence, "was exceedingly hurt at this {Joseph Andrews), 
the more so as they had been on good terms, and he was very intimate with 
Fielding's two sisters. He never appears cordially to have forgiven it (perhaps 
it was not in human nature he should) , and he always speaks in his letters with 
a great deal of asperity of Tom Jones, more indeed than was quite graceful in 
a rival author. No doubt he himself thought his indignation was solely excited 
by the loose morality of the work and of its author, but he could tolerate Gibber." 



200 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

and the dinner and the company were scarce such as suited a 
dandy. The kind and wise old Johnson would not sit down 
with him.* But a greater scholar than Johnson could afford 
to admire that astonishing genius of Harry Fielding ; and we 
5 all know the lofty panegyric which Gibbon wrote of him, and 
which remains a towering monument to the great novelist's 
memory. ''Our immortal Fielding," Gibbon writes, ''was 
of the younger branch of the Earls of Denbigh, who drew their 
origin from the Counts of Hapsburgh. The successors of 

lo Charles V may disdain their brethren of England, but the 
romance of 'Tom Jones,' that exquisite picture of humor and 
manners, will outlive the palace of the Escurial and the Im- 
perial Eagle of Austria." 

There can be no gainsaying the sentence of this great 

15 judge. To have your name mentioned by Gibbon, is like 
having it written on the dome of St. Peter's. Pilgrims from 
all the world admire and behold it. 

As a picture of manners, the novel of " Tom Jones " is indeed 
exquisite : as a work of construction, quite a wonder : the by- 

20 play of wisdom ; the power of observation ; the multiplied 
felicitous turns and thoughts; the varied character of the 
great Comic Epic : keep the reader in a perpetual admiration 
and curiosity, t But against Mr. Thomas Jones himself we 

* It must always be borne in mind, that besides that the Doctor couldn't 
be expected to like Fielding's wild life (to say nothing of the fact that they 
were of opposite sides in politics), Richardson was one of his earliest and kindest 
friends. Yet Johnson too (as Boswell tells us) read Amelia through without 
stopping. 

t "Manners change from generation to generation, and with manners morals 
appear to change — actually change with some, but appear to change with all 
but the abandoned. A young man of the present day who should act as Tom 
Jones is supposed to act at Upton, with Lady Bellaston, &c., would not be a 
Tom Jones ; and a Tom Jones of the present day, without perhaps being in the 
ground a better man, would have perished rather than submit to be kept by a 
harridan of fortune. Therefore, this novel is, and indeed pretends to be, no 
example of conduct. But, notwithstanding all this, I do loathe the cant which 
can recommend Pamela and Clarissa Harlowe as strictly moral, although they 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 201 

have a right to put in a protest, and quarrel with the esteem 
the author evidently has for that character. Charles Lamb 
says finely of Jones, that a single hearty laugh from him 
"clears the air" — but then it is in a certain state of the 
atmosphere. It might clear the air when such personages as 5 
Blifil or Lady Bellaston poison it. But I fear very much 
that (except until the very last scene of the story), when Mr. 
Jones enters Sophia's drawing-room, the pure air there is 
rather tainted with the young gentleman's tobacco pipe and 
punch. I can't say that I think Mr. Jones a virtuous charac- 10 
ter ; I can't say but that I think Fielding's evident liking and 
admiration for Mr. Jones shows that the great humorist's 
moral sense was blunted by his life, and that here, in Art and 
Ethics, there is a great error. If it is right to have a hero 
whom we may admire, let us at least take care that he is 15 
admirable : if, as is the plan of some authors (a plan decidedly 
against their interests, be it said), it is propounded that there 
exists in life no such being, and therefore that in novels, the 
picture of life, there should appear no such character; then 
Mr. Thomas Jones becomes an admissible person, and we 20 
examine his defects and good qualities, as we do those of 
Parson Thwackum, or Miss Seagrim. But a hero with a 
flawed reputation; a hero spunging for a guinea; a hero 
who can't pay his landlady, and is obliged to let his honor out 
to hire, is absurd, and his claim to heroic rank untenable. I 25 
protest against Mr. Thomas Jones holding such rank at all. 
I protest even against his being considered a more than ordi- 
nary young fellow, ruddy-cheeked, broad-shouldered, and 

poison the imagination of the young with continued doses of tinct. lyttce, while 
Tom Jones is prohibited as loose. I do not speak of young women ; but a young 
man whose heart or feelings can be injured, or even his passions excited, by this 
novel, is already thoroughly corrupt. There is a cheerful, sunshiny, breezy 
spirit, that prevails everywhere, strongly contrasted with the close, hot, day- 
dreamy continuity of Richardson." — Coleridge. Literary Remains, vol. ii. 
P- 374- 



202 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

fond of wine and pleasure. He would not rob a church, but 
that is all ; and a pretty long argument may be debated, as to 
which of these old types — the spendthrift, the hypocrite, 
Jones and Blifil, Charles and Joseph Surface — is the worst 
5 member of society and the most deserving of censure. The 
prodigal Captain Booth is a better man than his predecessor 
Mr. Jones, in so far as he thinks much more humbly of him- 
self than Jones did : goes down on his knees, and owns his 
weaknesses, and cries out, "Not for my sake, but for the sake 

lo of my pure and sweet and beautiful wife Amelia, I pray you, O 
critical reader, to forgive me." That stern moralist regards 
him from the bench (the judge's practice out of court is not 
here the question), and says, ''Captain Booth, it is perfectly 
true that your life has been disreputable, and that on many 

IS occasions you have shown yourself to be no better than a 
scamp — you have been tippling at the tavern, when the 
kindest and sweetest lady in the world has cooked your little 
supper of boiled mutton and awaited you all the night ; you 
have spoilt the little dish of boiled mutton thereby, and caused 

20 pangs and pains to Amelia's tender heart.* You have got 

* "Nor was she (Lady Mary Wortley Montagu) a stranger to that beloved 
first wife, whose picture he drew in his 'Amelia,' when, as she said, even the 
glowing language he knew how to employ did not do more than justice to the 
amiable quahties of the original, or to her beauty, although this had suffered 
a httle from the accident related in the novel — a frightful overturn, which 
destroyed the gristle of her nose. He loved her passionately, and she returned 
his affection. . . . 

"His biographers seem to have been shy of disclosing that, after the death 
of this charming woman, he married her maid. And yet the act was not so 
discreditable to his character as it may sound. The maid had few personal 
charms, but was an excellent creature, devotedly attached to her mistress, and 
almost broken-hearted for her loss. In the first agonies of his own grief, which 
approached to frenzy, he found no relief but from weeping along with her; 
nor solace when a degree calmer, but in talking to her of the angel they mutually 
regretted. This made her his habitual confidential associate, and in process of 
time he began to think he could not give his children a tenderer mother, or 
secure for himself a more faithful housekeeper and nurse. At least, this was what 
he told his friends ; and it is certain that her conduct as his wife confirmed it, 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 203 

into debt without the means of paying it. You have gam- 
bled the money with which you ought to have paid your rent. 
You have spent in drink or in worse amusements the sums 
which your poor wife has raised upon her httle home treasures, 
her own ornaments, and the toys of her children. But, you 5 
rascal ! you own humbly that you are no better than you 
should be ; you never for one moment pretend that you are 
anything but a miserable weak-minded rogue. You do in 
your heart adore that angelic woman your wife, and for her 
sake, sirrah, you shall have your discharge. Lucky for you, 10 
and for others like you, that in spite of your failings and im- 
perfections, pure hearts pity and love you. For your wife's 
sake you are permitted to go hence without a remand ; and I 
beg you, by the way, to carry to that angelical lady the ex- 
pression of the cordial respect and admiration of this court." 15 
Ameha pleads for her husband. Will Booth : AmeHa pleads 
for her reckless kindly old father, Harry Fielding. To have 
invented that character is not only a triumph of art, but it is a 
good action. They say it was in his own home that Fielding 
knew her and loved her : and from his own wife that he drew 20 
the most charming character in Enghsh fiction. Fiction ! 
why fiction ? why not history ? I know Amelia just as well 
as Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. I beheve in Colonel Bath 
almost as much as in Colonel Gardiner or the Duke of Cum- 
berland. I admire the author of "AmeHa," and thank the 25 
kind master who introduced me to that sweet and delightful 

and fully justified his good opinion." — Letters and Works of Lady Mary Wortley 
Montagu. Edited by Lord Wharncliffe. Introductory Anecdotes, vol. i. pp. 80, 81. 
Fielding's first wife was Miss Craddock, a young lady from Salisbury, with 
a fortune of £1500, whom he married in 1736. About the same time he suc- 
ceeded, himself, to an estate of £200 per annum, and on the joint amount he lived 
for some time as a splendid country gentleman in Dorsetshire. Three years 
brought him to the end of his fortune; when he returned to London, and be- 
came a theatrical manager. [Recent researches have not confirmed the report 
as to the "estate of £200 a year"; nor can he have spent three years in the 
country.] 



204 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

companion and friend. "Amelia" perhaps is not a better 
story than "Tom Jones," but it has the better ethics; the 
prodigal repents, at least, before forgiveness — whereas that 
odious broadbacked Mr. Jones carries off his beauty with 

5 scarce an interval of remorse for his manifold errors and short- 
comings; and is not half punished enough before the great 
prize of fortune and love falls to his share. I am angry with 
Jones. Too much of the plumcake and rewards of life fall 
to that boisterous, swaggering young scapegrace. Sophia 

lo actually surrenders without a proper sense of decorum ; the 
fond, foolish palpitating little creature! — "Indeed, Mr. 
Jones," she says, "it rests with you to appoint the day." 
I suppose Sophia is drawn from life as well as Amelia; and 
many a young fellow, no better than Mr. Thomas Jones, has 

15 carried by a coup de main the heart of many a kind girl who 
was a great deal too good for him. 

What a wonderful art ! What an admirable gift of nature 
was it by which the author of these tales was endowed, and 
which enabled him to fix our interest, to waken our sym- 

2opathy, to seize upon our credulity, so that we believe in his 
people — speculate gravely upon their faults or their excel- 
lences, prefer this one or that, deplore Jones's fondness for 
play and drink, Booth's fondness for play and drink, and the 
unfortunate position of the wives of both gentlemen — love 

25 and admire those ladies with aU our hearts, and talk about 
them as faithfully as if we had breakfasted with them this 
morning in their actual drawing-rooms, or should meet them 
this afternoon in the Park ! What a genius ! what a vigor ! 
what a bright-eyed intelligence and observation ! what a 

30 wholesome hatred for meanness and knavery ! what a vast 
sympathy ! what a cheerfulness ! what a manly relish of life ! 
what a love of human kind ! what a poet is here ! — watching, 
meditating, brooding, creating ! What multitudes of truths 
has that man left behind him ! What generations he has 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 205 

taught to laugh wisely and fairly ! What scholars he has 
formed and accustomed to the exercise of thoughtful humor 
and the manly play of wit ! What a courage he had ! What 
a dauntless and constant cheerfulness of intellect, that burned 
bright and steady through all the storms of his life, and never 5 
deserted its last wreck ! It is wonderful to think of the pains 
and misery which the man suffered; the pressure of want, 
illness, remorse which he endured ! and that the writer was 
neither malignant nor melancholy, his. view of truth never 
warped, and his generous human kindness never surrendered.* 10 

* In the Gentleman's Magazine for ^786, an anecdote is related of Harry 
Fielding, "in whom," says the correspondent, "good-nature and philanthropy 
in their extreme degree were known to be the prominent features." It seems 
that "some parochial taxes" for his house in Beaufort Buildings had long been 
demanded by the collector. "At last, Harry went oS to Johnson, and obtained 
by a process of literary mortgage the needful sum. He was returning with it, 
when he met an old college chum whgm he had not seen for many years. He 
asked the chum to dinner with him at a neighboring tavern; and learning that 
he was in difficulties, emptied the contents of his pocket into his. On returning 
home he was informed that the collector had been twice for the money. ' Friend- 
ship has called for the money and had it,' said Fielding; 'let the collector call 
again.'" 

It is elsewhere told of him, that being in company with the Earl of Denbigh, 
his kinsman, and the conversation turning upon their relationship, the Earl 
asked him how it was that he spelled his name "Fielding," and not "Feilding," 
like the head of the house? "I cannot tell, my Lord," said he, "except it be 
that my branch of the family were the first that knew how to spell." 

In 1748, he was made Justice of the Peace for Westminster and Middlesex, 
an office then paid by fees and very laborious, without being particularly repu- 
table. It may be seen from his own words, in the Introduction to the " Voy- 
age," what kind of work devolved upon him, and in what a state he was during 
these last years ; and still more clearly, how he comported himself through all. 

"Whilst I was preparing for my journey, and when I was almost fatigued to 
death with several long examinations, relating to five different murders, all com- 
mitted within the space of a week, by different gangs of street-robbers, I received 
a message from his Grace the Duke of Newcastle, by Mr. Carrington, the King's 
messenger, to attend his Grace the next morning in Lincoln's Inn Fields, upon 
some business of importance : but I excused myself from complying with the 
message, as, besides being lame, I was very ill with the great fatigues I had 
lately undergone, added to my distemper. 

"His Grace, however, sent Mr. Carrington the very next morning with 
another summons, with which, though in the utmost distress, I immediately 



2o6 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

In the quarrel mentioned before, which happened on Field- 
ing's last voyage to Lisbon, and when the stout captain of 
the ship fell down on his knees, and asked the sick man's 
pardon — "I did not suffer," Fielding says, in his hearty, 
5 manly way, his eyes lighting up as it were with their old fire — ■ 
"I did not suffer a brave man and an old man to remain a 
moment in that posture, but immediately forgave him." 

complied ; but the Duke happening, unfortunately for me, to be then particularly 
engaged, after I had waited some time, sent a gentleman to discourse with me 
on the best plan which could be invented for these murders and robberies, which 
were every day committed in the streets ; upon which I promised to transmit my 
opinion in writing to his Grace, who, as the gentleman informed me, intended to 
lay it before the Privy Council. 

"Though this visit cost me a severe cold, I, notwithstanding, set myself down 
to work, and in about four days sent the Duke as regular a plan as I could form, 
with all the reasons and arguments I could bring to support it, drawn out on 
several sheets of paper; and soon received a message from the Duke, by Mr. 
Carrington, acquainting me that my plan was highly approved of, and that all 
the terms of it would be complied with. 

"The principal and most material of these terms was the immediately de- 
positing £600 in my hands; at which small charge I undertook to demolish 
the then reigning gangs, and to put the civil policy into such order, that no such 
gangs should ever be able for the future to form themselves into bodies, or at 
least to remain any time formidable to the public. 

"I had delayed my Bath journey for some time, contrary to the repeated 
advice of my physical acquaintances and the ardent desire of my warmest 
friends, though my distemper was now turned to a deep jaundice; in which 
case the Bath waters are generally reputed to be almost infallible. But I had 
the most eager desire to demolish this gang of villains and cutthroats. . . . 

"After some weeks the money was paid at the Treasury, and within a few 
days after £200 of it had come into my hands, the whole gang of cutthroats was 
entirely dispersed. . . ." 

Further on, he says — 

"I will confess that my private affairs at the beginning of the winter had 
but a gloomy aspect ; for I had not plundered the public or the poor of those 
sums which men, who are always ready to plunder both as much as they can, 
have been pleased to suspect me of taking; on the contrary, by composing, 
instead of inflaming, the quarrels of porters and beggars (which I blush when 
I say hath not been universally practiced), and by refusing to take a shilling 
from a man who most undoubtedly would not have had another left, I had 
reduced an income of about £500 a year of the dirtiest money upon earth to 
little more than £300, a considerable portion of which remained with my 
clerk." 



HOGARTH, SMOLLETT, AND FIELDING 207 

Indeed, I think, with his noble spirit and unconquerable 
generosity, Fielding reminds one of those brave men of whom 
one reads in stories of English shipwrecks and disasters — 
of the officer on the African shore, when disease had destroyed 
the crew, and he himself is seized by fever, who throws the 5 
lead with a death-stricken hand, takes the soundings, carries 
the ship out of the river or off the dangerous coast, and dies 
in the manly endeavor — of the wounded captain, when the 
vessel founders, who never loses his heart, who eyes the danger 
steadily, and has a cheery word for all, until the inevitable 10 
fate overwhelms him, and the gallant ship goes down. Such 
a brave and gentle heart, such an intrepid and courageous 
spirit, I love to recognize in the manly, the English Harry 
Fielding. 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 

Roger Sterne, Sterne's father, was the second son of a 
numerous race, descendants of Richard Sterne, Archbishop 
of York, in the reign of Charles II ; * and children of Simon 
Sterne and Mary Jaques, his wife, heiress of Elvington, near 
5 York, t Roger was an ensign in Colonel Hans Hamilton's 
regiment, and engaged in Flanders in Queen Anne's wars.J 
He married the daughter of a noted sutler. "N.B., he was 
in debt to him," his son writes, pursuing the paternal biog- 
raphy — and marched through the world with this com- 

lo panion ; she following the regiment and bringing many chil- 
dren to poor Roger Sterne. The Captain was an irascible 
but kind and simple little man, Sterne says, and he informs 
us that his sire was run through the body at Gibraltar, by a 
brother ofiftcer, in a duel which arose out of a dispute about a 

IS goose. Roger never entirely recovered from the effects of 
this rencontre, but died presently at Jamaica,! whither he 
had followed the drum. 

Laurence, his second child, was born at Clonmel, in Ireland, 
in 1 7 13, and traveled, for the first ten years of his life, on his 

20 father's march, from barrack to transport, from Ireland to 
England. || 

* [1664 to 1683.] 

t He came of a Suffolk family — one of whom settled in Nottinghamshire. 
The famous "starling" was actually the family crest. 

t [He was appointed ensign about 17 10. The regiment became Colonel 
Chudleigh's in 1711, and afterwards the 34th Foot. He did not become lieu- 
tenant till late in Hfe.] 

§ [March 1731.] 

11 "It was in this parish (of Animo, in Wicklow), during our stay, that I 
had that wonderful escape in falling through a mill-race, whilst the mill was 

208 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 209 

One relative of his mother's took her and her family under 
shelter for ten months at Mullingar; another collateral de- 
scendant of the Archbishop's housed them for a year at his 
castle near Carrickfergus. Larry Sterne was put to school at 
Halifax in England, finally was adopted by his kinsman of 5 
Elvington, and parted company with his father, the Captain, 
who marched on his path of life till he met the fatal goose 
which closed his career. The most picturesque and delight- 
ful parts of Laurence Sterne's writings we owe to his recol- 
lections of the military life. Trim's montero cap, and Le 10 
Fevre's sword, and dear Uncle Toby's roquelaure are doubt- 
less reminiscences of the boy, who had lived with the followers 
of Wilham and Marlborough, and had beat time with his 
little feet to the fifes of Ramillies in Dublin barrack yard, or 
played with the torn flags and halberds of Malplaquet on the 15 
parade ground at Clonmel. 

Laurence remained at Halifax school till he was eighteen 
years old. His wit and cleverness appear to have acquired 
the respect of his master here ; for when the usher whipped 
Laurence for writing his name on the newly whitewashed 20 
schoolroom ceiling, the pedagogue in chief rebuked the under- 
strapper, and said that the name should never be effaced, for 
Sterne was a boy of genius, and would come to preferment. 

His cousin, the Squire of Elvington, sent Sterne to Jesus 
College, Cambridge, where he remained some years,* and, 25 
taking orders, got, through his uncle's interest, the living of 
Sutton and a prebendal stall at York.f Through his wife's 

going, and of being taken up unhurt: the story is incredible, but known for 
truth in all that part of Ireland, where hundreds of the common people flocked 
to see me." — Sterne. 

* [He was admitted sizar on 6th July 1733, became an exhibitioner in 1734, 
graduated B.A. in 1736, and M.A. 1740.] 

t [Sterne was presented to Sutton, where he generally lived till 1760, in 1738. 
He became prebendary of York in January 1740-41. In 1760 he moved to Cox- 
wold, on being presented to the perpetual curacy. He held a stall at York, 
and the three livings, Sutton, Stillington, and Coxwold, till his death.] 



2IO ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

connections he got the Hving of Stillington. He married her 
in 1 74 1, having ardently courted the young lady for some years 
previously. It was not until the young lady fancied herself 
dying, that she made Sterne acquainted with the extent of 
5 her liking for him. One evening when he was sitting with 
her, with an almost broken heart to see her so ill (the 
reverend Mr. Sterne's heart was a good deal broken in the 
course of his life), she said — ''My dear Laurey, I never can 
be yours, for I verily believe I have not long to live ; but I 

lohave left you every shilling of my fortune;" a generosity 
which overpowered Sterne. She recovered : and so they were 
married, and grew heartily tired of each other before many 
years were over. "Nescio quid est materia cum me," Sterne 
writes to one of his friends (in dog Latin, and very sad dog 

15 Latin too) ; "sed sum fatigatus et aegrotus de mea uxore plus 

quam unquam:" which means, I am sorry to say, "I don't 

know what is the matter with me ; but I am more tired and 

sick of my wife than ever." * 

This to be sure was five-and- twenty years f after Laurey had 

20 been overcome by her generosity, and she by Laurey's love. 
Then he wrote to her of the delights of marriage, saying "We 
will be as merry and as innocent as our first parents in Para- 
dise, before the archfiend entered that indescribable scene. 
The kindest affections will have room to expand in our retire- 

25 ment : let the human tempest and hurricane rage at a dis- 
tance, the desolation is beyond the horizon of peace. My L. 

* "My wife returns to Toulouse, and proposes to pass the summer at Ba- 
gneres. I, on the contrary, go and visit my wife, the church, in Yorkshire. We 
all Uve the longer, at least the happier, for having things our own way ; this 
is my conjugal maxim. I own 'tis not the best of maxims, but I maintain 'tis 
not the worst." — Sterne's Letters: 20th January 1764. [His wife was Eliza- 
beth, only daughter of Richard Lumley, formerly rector of Bedale. Both 
parents died in her infancy.] 

t [This is probably a mistake. The Latin letter addressed to John Hall 
Stevenson is now known to have been written in 1758. Mrs. Sterne had a fit 
of insanity next year, and was for a time at a private asylum in York.] 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 211 

has seen a polyanthus blow in December ? — Some friendly 
wall has sheltered it from the biting wind. No planetary 
influence shall reach us but that which presides and cherishes 
the sweetest flowers. The gloomy family of care and dis- 
trust shall be banished from our dwelling, guarded by thy 5 
kind and tutelar deity. We will sing our choral songs of 
gratitude and rejoice to the end of our pilgrimage. Adieu, 
my L. Return to one who languishes for thy society ! — 
As I take up my pen, my poor pulse quickens, my pale face 
glows, and tears are trickling down on my paper as I trace 10 
the word L." 

And it is about this woman, with whom he finds no fault 
but that she bores him, that our philanthropist writes, ''Sum 
fatigatus et ^egrotus" — Sum mortaliter in amore with some- 
body else ! That fine flower of love, that polyanthus over 15 
which Sterne sniveled so many tears, could not last for a 
quarter of a century ! 

Or rather it could not be expected that a gentleman with 
such a fountain at command should keep it to arroser one 
homely old lady, when a score of younger and prettier people 20 
might be refreshed from the same gushing source.* It was 

*In a collection of "Seven Letters by Sterne and his Friends" (printed 
for private circulation in 1844), is a letter of M. ToUot, who was in France 
with Sterne and his family in 1764. Here is a paragraph: — 

"Nous arrivames le lendemain a Montpellier, oii nous trouvames notre ami 
Mr. Sterne, sa femme, sa fille, Mr. Huet, et quelques autres Anglaises. J'eus, 
je vous I'avoue, beaucoup de plaisir en revoyant le bon et agreable Tristram. 
... II avait ete assez longtemps a Toulouse, oh. il se serait amuse sans sa femme, . 
qui le poursuivit partout, et qui voulait etre de tout. Ces dispositions dans 
cette bonne dame lui ont fait passer d'assez mauvais momens ; il supporte tous 
ces desagremens avec une patience d'ange." 

About four months after this very characteristic letter, Sterne wrote to the 
same gentleman to whom Tollot had written; and from his letter we may ex- 
tract a companion paragraph : — 

" All which being premised, I have been for eight weeks smitten 

with the tenderest passion that ever tender wight underwent. I wish, dear 
cousin, thou couldst conceive (perhaps thou canst without my wishing it) how 
deliciously I cantered away with it the first month, two up, two down, always 



212 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

in December 1767, that the Reverend Laurence Sterne, the 
famous Shandean, the charming Yorick, the deHght of the 
fashionable world, the delicious divine for whose sermons the 
whole polite world was subscribing,* the occupier of Rabe- 
S lais's easy-chair, only fresh stuffed and more elegant than when 
in possession of the cynical old curate of Meudon,t — the 

upon my hanches, along the streets from my hotel to hers, at first once — then 
twice, then three times a day, till at length I was within an ace of setting up 
my hobby-horse in her stable for good and all. I might as well, considering 
how the enemies of the Lord have blasphemed thereupon. The last three 
weeks we were every hour upon the doleful ditty of parting; and thou may'st 
conceive, dear cousin, how it altered my gait and air: for I went and came 
like any louden'd carl, and did nothing but jouer des sentimens with her from 
sun rising even to the setting of the same ; and now she is gone to the south of 
France : and to finish the comedie, I fell ill, and broke a vessel in my lungs, and 
half bled to death. Voila mon histoire ! " 

Whether husband or wife had most of the "patience d'ange" may be uncer- 
tain ; but there can be no doubt which needed it most ! 

* '"Tristram Shandy' is still a greater object of admiration, the man as 
well as the book : one is invited to dinner, where he dines, a fortnight before. 
As to the volumes yet published, there is much good fun in them and humor 
sometimes hit and sometimes missed. Have you read his 'Sermons,' with his 
own comick figure, from a painting by Reynolds, at the head of them ? They 
are in the style I think most proper for the pulpit, and show a strong imagina- 
tion and a sensible heart ; but you see him often tottering on the verge of laughter, 
and ready to throw his periwig in the face of the audience." — Gray's Letters: 
June 2 2d, 1760. 

"It having been obsefved that there was Httle hospitality in London — 
Johnson : ' Nay, sir, any man who has a name, or who has the power of pleas- 
ing, will be very generally invited in London. The man, Sterne, I have been 
told, has had engagements for three months.' Goldsmith: 'And a very dull 
fellow.' Johnson: 'Why, no, sir.'" — Boswell's Life of Johnson. 

"Her [Miss Monckton's] vivacity enchanted the sage, and they used to talk 
together with all imaginable ease. A singular instance happened one evening, 
when she insisted that some of Sterne's writings were very pathetic. Johnson 
bluntly denied it. 'I am sure,' said she, 'they have affected me.' 'Why,' 
said Johnson, smiling, and rolling himself about — ' that is because, dearest, 
you're a dunce.' When she some time afterwards mentioned this to him, he said 
with equal truth and politeness, ' Madam, if I had thought so, I certainly should 
not have said it.' " — Ibid. 

t A passage or two from Sterne's Sermons may not be without interest here. 
Is not the following, leveled against the cruelties of the Church of Rome, stamped 
with the autograph of the author of the Sentimental Journey? — 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 213 

more than rival of the Dean of Saint Patrick's, wrote the 
above-quoted respectable letter to his friend in London : and 
it was in April of the same year that he was pouring out his 
fond heart to Mrs. Elizabeth Draper, wife of "Daniel Draper, 

"To be convinced of this, go with me for a moment into the prisons of the In- 
quisition — behold religion with mercy and justice chained down under her 
feet — there, sitting ghastly upon a black tribunal, propped up with racks, and 
instruments of torment. — Hark ! — what a piteous groan ! — See the melan- 
choly wretch who, uttered it, just brought forth to undergo the anguish of a 
mock-trial, and endure the utmost pain that a studied system of religious cruelty 
has been able to invent. Behold this helpless victim delivered up to his tor- 
mentors. His body so wasted with sorrow and long confinement, you'll see every 
nerve and muscle as it sufers. — Observe the last movement of that horrid engine 

— What convulsions it has thrown him into ! Consider the nature of the posture 
in which he now lies stretched. — What exquisite torture he endures by it ! — 
'Tis all nature can bear. — Good God ! see how it keeps his weary soul hanging 
upon his trembling lips, willing to take its leave, but not suffered to depart. 
Behold the unhappy wretch led back to his cell — dragg'd out of it again to 
meet the flames — and the insults in his last agonies, which this principle — this 
principle, that there can be religion without morality — has prepared for him." 

— Sermon 27 th. 

The next extract is preached on a text to be found in Judges xix. vv. i, 2, 3, 
concerning a "certain Levite" : — 

"Such a one the Levite wanted to share his solitude and fill up that uncom- 
fortable blank in the heart in such a situation: for, notwithstanding all we 
meet with in books, in many of which, no doubt, there are a good many hand- 
some things said upon the sweets of retirement, &c. . . . yet still ' it is not good 
for man to be alone;' nor can all which the cold-hearted pedant stuns our ear& 
with upon the subject, ever give one answer of satisfaction to the mind; in 
the midst of the loudest vaimtings of philosophy, nature will have her yearn- 
ings for society and friendship; a good heart wants some object to be kind to 

— and the best parts of our blood, and the purest of our spirits, suffer most under 
the destitution. 

"Let the torpid monk seek Heaven comfortless and alone. God speed 
him ! For my own part, I fear I should never so find the way : let me be wise 
and religious, but let me be Man ; wherever thy Providence places me, or what- 
ever be the road I take to Thee, give me some companion in my journey, be 
it only to remark to, ' How our shadows lengthen as our sun goes down ! ' — 
to whom I may say, ' How fresh is the face of Nature ! how sweet the flowers 
of the field ! how delicious are these fruits !'" — Sermon iSth. 

The first of these passages gives us another drawing of the famous " Captive." 
The second shows that the same reflection was suggested to the Reverend 
Laurence by a text in Judges as by the fille-de-chambre. 

Sterne's Sermons v/ere published as those of "Mr. Yorick." 



214 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

Esquire, Councilor of Bombay, and, in 1775, chief of the 
factory of Surat — a gentleman very much respected in that 
quarter of the globe."* 

"I got thy letter last night, Eliza," Sterne writes, ''on my 

5 return from Lord Bathurst's, where I dined" — (the letter 
has this merit in it, that it contains a pleasant reminiscence 
of better men than Sterne, and introduces us to a portrait of 
a kind old gentleman) — "I got thy letter last night, Eliza, 
on my return from Lord Bathurst's ; and where I was heard — 

10 as I talked of thee an hour without intermission — with so 
much pleasure and attention, that the good old Lord toasted 
your health three different times ; and now he is in his 85th 
year, says he hopes to live long enough to be introduced as a 
friend to my fair Indian disciple, and to see her eclipse all 

15 other Nabobesses as much in wealth as she does already in 
exterior and, what is far better" (for Sterne is nothing with- 
out his morality), ''in interior merit. This nobleman is an 
old friend of mine. You know he was always the protector 
of men of wit and genius, and has had those of the last cen- 

2otury, Addison, Steele, Pope, Swift, Prior, &c., always at his 
table. The m.anner in which his notice began of me was as 
singular as it was polite. He came up to me one day as I 
was at the Princess of Wales's Court, and said, 'I want to 
know you, Mr. Sterne, but it is fit you also should know who 

25 it is that wishes this pleasure. You have heard of an old 
Lord Bathurst, of whom your Popes and Swifts have sung and 
spoken so much ? I have lived my life with geniuses of that 
cast ; but have survived them ; and, despairing ever to find 
their equals, it is some years since I have shut up my books 

30 and closed my accounts ; but you have kindled a desire in 
me of opening them once more before I die : which I now do : 

* [Mrs. Draper, daughter of May Sclater, of a good west-country family, 
was married at Bombay in 1758, when Httle more than fourteen. She first met 
Sterne when on a visit to England in December 1766.] 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 215 

so go home and dine with me.' This nobleman, I say, is a 
prodigy, for he has all the wit and promptness of a man of 
thirty; a disposition to be pleased, and a power to please 
others, beyond whatever I knew : added to which a man of 
learning, courtesy, and feeling. 5 

''He heard me talk of thee, Eliza, with uncommon satis- 
faction — for there was only a third person, and of sensibility, 
with us : and a most sentimental afternoon till nine o'clock 
have we passed ! * But thou, Eliza, wert the star that con- 
ducted and enlivened the discourse ! And when I talked not 10 
of thee, still didst thou fill my mind, and warm every thought 
I uttered, for I am not ashamed to acknowledge I greatly miss 
thee. Best of all good girls ! — the sufferings I have sus- 
tained all night in consequence of thine, Eliza, are beyond the 
power of words. . . . And so thou hast fixed thy Bramin's 15 
portrait over thy writing-desk, and wilt consult it in all doubts 
and difficulties ? — Grateful and good girl ! Yorick smiles 
contentedly over all thou dost : his picture does not do justice 
to his own complacency. I am glad your shipmates are 
friendly beings" (Eliza was at Deal, going back to the Coun- 20 
cilor at Bombay, and indeed it was high time she should be 
off). "You could least dispense with what is contrary to 

* "I am glad that you are in love : 'twill cure you at least of the spleen, which 
has a bad effect on both man and woman. I myself must ever have some Dul- 
cinea in my head ; it harmonizes the soul ; and in these cases I first endeavor to 
make the lady believe so, or rather, I begin first to make myself believe that 
I am in love ; but I carry on my affairs quite in the French way, sentimentally : . 
'L'amour,' say they, 'n'est rien sans sentiment.' Now, notwithstanding they 
make such a pother about the word, they have no precise idea annexed to it. 
And so much for that same subject called love." — Sterne's Letters; May 23, 
1765. 

"P.S. — My Sentimental Journey will please Mrs. J(ames) and my Lydia" 
[his daughter, afterwards Mrs. Medalle] — "I can answer for those two. It is 
a subject which works well, and suits the frame of mind I have been in for some 
time past. I told you my design in it was to teach us to love the world and 
our fellow-creatures better than we do — so it runs most upon those gentler 
passions and affections which aid so much to it." — Letters [1767]. 



2i6 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

your own nature, which is soft and gentle, Eliza; it would 
civilize savages — though pity were it thou shouldst be 
tainted with the office. Write to me, my child, thy delicious 
letters. Let them speak the easy carelessness of a heart 
5 that opens itself anyhow, everyhow. Such, Eliza, I write to 
thee!" (The artless rogue, of course he did!) "And so I 
should ever love thee, most artlessly, most affectionately, if 
Providence permitted thy residence in the same section of the 
globe : for I am all that honor and affection can make me 
io'Thy Bramin.'" 

The Bramin continues addressing Mrs. Draper until the 

departure of the Earl of Chatham Indiaman from Deal, on the 

3d of April 1767. He is amiably anxious about the fresh 

paint for Eliza's cabin; he is uncommonly solicitous about 

15 her companions on board : 

"I fear the best of your shipmates are only genteel by com- 
parison with the contrasted crew with which thou beholdest 
them. So was — you know who — from the same fallacy 
which was put upon your judgment when — but I will not 
20 mortify you !" 

"You know who" was, of course, Daniel Draper, Esquire, 
of Bombay — a gentleman very much respected in that 
quarter of the globe, and about whose probable health our 
worthy Bramin writes with delightful candor : 

25 "I honor you, Eliza, for keeping secret some things which, 
if explained, had been a panegyric on yourself. There is a 
dignity in venerable affliction which will not allow it to appeal 
to the world for pity or redress. Well have you supported 
that character, my amiable, my philosophic friend ! And, 

30 indeed, I begin to think you have as many virtues as my 
Uncle Toby's widow. Talking of widows — pray, Eliza, 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 217 

if ever you are such, do not think of giving yourself to some 
wealthy Nabob, because I design to marry you myself. My 
wife cannot live long, and I know not the woman I should 
like so well for her substitute as yourself. 'Tis true I am 
ninety-five in constitution, and you but twenty-five ; but what 5 
I want in youth, I will make up in wit and good humor. Not 
Swift so loved his Stella, Scarron his Maintenon, or Waller 
his Saccharissa. Tell me, in answer to this, that you ap- 
prove and honor the proposal." 

Approve and honor the proposal ! The coward was writing 10 
gay letters to his friends this while, with sneering allusions 
to this poor foolish Bramine. Her ship was not out of the 
Downs and the charming Sterne was at the "Mount Cofifee- 
house," with a sheet of gilt-edged paper before him, offering 

that precious treasure his heart to Lady P ,* asking 15 

whether it gave her pleasure to see him unhappy? whether 
it added to her triumph that her eyes and lips had turned a 
man into a fool ? — quoting the Lord's Prayer, with a hor- 
rible baseness of blasphemy, as a proof that he had desired 
not to be led into temptation, and swearing himself the most 20 
tender and sincere fool in the world. It was from his home 
at Coxwold that he wrote the Latin Letter, which, I suppose, 
he was ashamed to put into English. I find in my copy of the 
Letters that there is a note of, I can't call it admiration, at 
Letter 112, which seems to announce that there was a No. 3 25 
to whom the wretched worn-out old scamp was paying his 
addresses ; f and the year after, having come back to his 

* [i.e. Lady Percy, daughter of Lord Bute.] 

t To Mrs. H 



"Coxwould: Nov. 15, 1767 

"Now be a good dear woman, my H , and execute those commissions 

well, and when I see you I will give you a kiss — there's for you ! But I have 
something else for you which I am fabricating at a great rate, and that is my 



2i8 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

lodgings in Bond Street, with his ''Sentimental Journey" 
to launch upon the town, eager as ever for praise and pleasure 

— as vain, as wicked, as witty, as false as he had ever been 

— death at length seized the feeble wretch, and on the i8th 
5 of March 1768, that ''bale of cadaverous goods," as he calls 

his body, was consigned to Pluto.* In his last letter there 
is one sign of grace — the real affection with which he entreats 

'Sentimental Journey,' which shall make you cry as much as it has affected 
me, or I will give up the business of sentimental writing. . . . 

"I am yours, &c. &c., 

"T. Shanby " 

To the Earl of 

"Coxwould: Nov. 28, 1767 

"My Lord, — 'Tis with the greatest pleasure I take my pen to thank your 
lordship for your letter of inquiry about Yorick : he was worn out, both his 
spirits and body, with the 'Sentimental Journey.' 'Tis true, then, an author 
must feel himself, or his reader will not ; but I have torn my whole frame into 
pieces by my feelings : I believe the brain stands as much in need of recruiting 
as the body. Therefore I shall set out for town the twentieth of next month, 
after having recruited myself a week at York. I might indeed solace myself 
with my wife (who is come from France) ; but, in fact, I have long been a sen- 
timental being, whatever your lordship may think to the contrary." 

[From April to August 1767, Sterne wrote a "Journal to EHza," which he 
called the "Bramine's Journal," and described as a "diary of the miserable feel- 
ings of a person separated from a lady for whose society he languished." It has 
never been printed. It was bequeathed to the British Museum by Mr. Thomas 
Washbourne Gibbs, of Bath, who, in 1851, showed it to Thackeray with a view 
to this lecture. Thackeray returned it without using it, and told the owner 
that it made him think worse of Sterne than any of the published writings.] 

*"In February 1768, Laurence Sterne, his frame exhausted by long de- 
bilitating illness, expired at his lodgings in Bond Street, London. There was 
something in the manner of his death singularly resembling the particulars 
detailed by Mrs. Quickly as attending that of Falstaff, the compeer of Yorick, 
for infinite jest, however unlike in other particulars. As he lay on his bed 
totally exhausted, he complained that his feet were cold, and requested the 
female attendant to chafe them. She did so, and it seemed to relieve him. He 
complained that the cold came up higher; and whilst the assistant was in the 
act of chafing his ankles and legs, he expired without a groan. It was also 
remarkable that his death took place much in the manner which he himself had 
wished ; and that the last oflfices were rendered him, not in his own house, or 
by the hand of kindred affection, but in an inn, and by strangers. 

"We are well acquainted with Sterne's features and personal appearance, 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 219 

a friend to be a guardian to his daughter Lydia. All his 
letters to her are artless, kind, affectionate, and not senti- 
mental ; as a hundred pages in his writings are beautiful, 
and full, not of surprising humor merely, but of genuine love 
and kindness. A perilous trade, indeed, is that of a mans 
who has to bring his tears and laughter, his recollections, his 
personal griefs and joys, his private thoughts and feelings to 
market, to write them on paper, and sell them for money. 
Does he exaggerate his grief, so as to get his reader's pity for 
a false sensibility ? feign indignation, so as to establish a 10 
character for virtue? elaborate repartees, so that he may 
pass for a wit ? steal from other authors, and put down the 
theft to the credit side of his own reputation for ingenuity 
and learning ? feign originality ? affect benevolence or mis- 
anthropy ? appeal to the gallery gods with claptraps and 15 
vulgar baits to catch applause? 

How much of the paint and emphasis is necessary for the 
fair business of the stage, and how much of the rant and rouge 
is put on for the vanity of the actor? His audience trusts 
him : can he trust himself ? How much was deliberate cal- 20 
culation and imposture — how much was false sensibility — 
and how much true feeling? Where did the lie begin, and 
did he know where ? and where did the truth end in the art 
and scheme of this man of genius, this actor, this quack? 

to which he himself frequently alludes. He was tall and thin, with a hectic and 
consumptive appearance." — Sir Walter Scott. 

"It is known that Sterne died in hired lodgings, and I have been told that 
his attendants robbed him even of his gold sleeve-buttons while he was expiring." 
— Dr. Ferriar. 

"He died at No. 41 (now a cheesemonger's), on the west side of Old Bond 
Street." — Handbook of London. [At Sterne's death it is said to have been a 
"silk-bag shop" ; it is now Agnew's Picture Gallery. At his death, John Craw- 
ford of ErroU, who was entertaining some of Sterne's friends, sent a footmart 
to James Macdonald to inquire after his health. Macdonald, who published 
memoirs, was sent to Sterne's bedside, and heard the dying man say, "Now 
it has come." A few minutes later he was dead. He was buried in St. George's 
burial ground in the Bayswater Road, which has recently been put in order.] 



220 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

Some time since, I was in the company of a French actor 
who began after dinner, and at his own request, to sing French 
songs of the sort called des chansons grivoises, and which he 
performed admirably, and to the dissatisfaction of most 

5 persons present. Having finished these, he commenced a 
sentimental ballad — it was so charmingly sung that it 
touched all persons present, and especially the singer himself, 
whose voice trembled, whose eyes filled' with emotion, and 
who was snivelling and weeping quite genuine tears by the 

lotime his own ditty was over. I suppose Sterne had this 
artistical sensibility; he used to blubber perpetually in his 
study, and finding his tears infectious, and that they brought 
him a great popularity, he exercised the lucrative gift of weep- 
ing : he utilized it, and cried on every occasion. I own that 

15 I don't value or respect much the cheap dribble of those 
fountains. He fatigues me with his perpetual disquiet and 
his uneasy appeals to my risible or sentimental faculties. 
He is always looking in my face, watching his effect, uncer- 
tain whether I think him an impostor or not ; posture-making, 

20 coaxing, and imploring me. ''See what sensibility I have 
— own now that I'm very clever — do cry now, you can't 
resist this." The humor of Swift and Rabelais, whom he 
pretended to succeed, poured from them as naturally as song 
does from a bird; they lose no manly dignity with it, but 

25 laugh their hearty great laugh out of their broad chests as 
nature bade them. But this man — who can make you 
laugh, who can make you cry too — never lets his reader 
alone, or will permit his audience repose : when you are 
quiet, he fancies he must rouse you, and turns over head and 

30 heels, or sidles up and whispers a nasty story. The m.an is 
a great jester, not a great humorist. He goes to work sys- 
tematically and of cold blood ; paints his face, puts on his 
ruff and motley clothes, and lays down his carpet and tumbles 
on it. 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 221 

For instance, take the "Sentimental Journey," and see in 
the writer the deliberate propensity to make points and seek 
applause. He gets to "Dessein's Hotel," he wants a car- 
riage to travel to Paris, he goes to the innyard, and begins 
what the actors call "business" at once. There is that 5 
little carriage (the desohligeante) . 

"Four months had elapsed since it had finished its career 
of Europe in the corner of Monsieur Dessein's coach yard, 
and having sallied out thence but a vamped-up business at 
first, though it had been twice taken to pieces on Mont Cenis, 10 
it had not profited much by its adventures, but by none so 
little as the standing so many months unpitied in the corner 
of Monsieur Dessein's coach yard. Much, indeed, was not 
to be said for it — but something might — and when a few 
words will rescue misery out of her distress, I hate the man 15 
who can be a churl of them." 

Le tour est fait! Paillasse has tumbled ! Paillasse has 
jumped over the desohligeante, cleared it, hood and all, 
and bows to the noble company. Does anybody believe that 
this is a real Sentiment ? that this luxury of generosity, this 20 
gallant rescue of Misery — out of an old cab, is genuine 
feeling ? It is as genuine as the virtuous oratory of Joseph 
Surface when he begins, "The man who," &c. &c., and wishes 
to pass off for a saint with his credulous, good-humored 
dupes. 25 

Our friend purchases the carriage : after turning that 
notorious old monk to good account, and effecting (like a 
soft and good-natured Paillasse as he was, and very free 
with his money when he had it) an exchange of snuffboxes 
with the old Franciscan, jogs out of Calais; sets down in 30 
immense figures on the credit side of his account the sous 
he gives away to the Montreuil beggars ; and, at Nampont, 
gets out of the chaise and whimpers over that famous dead 
donkey, for which any sentimentalist may cry who will. 



222 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

It is agreeably and skillfully done — that dead jackass : like 
Monsieur de Soubise's cook on the campaign, Sterne dresses 
it, and serves it up quite tender and with a very piquant 
sauce. But tears and fine feelings, and a white pocket- 
5 handkerchief, and a funeral sermon, and horses and feathers, 
and a procession of mutes, and a hearse with a dead donkey 
inside ! Psha, mountebank ! I'll not give thee one penny 
more for that trick, donkey and "all ! 

This donkey had appeared once before with signal effect. 

loln 1765, three years before the publication of the ''Senti- 
mental Journey," the seventh and eighth volumes of "Tris- 
tram Shandy" were given to the world, and the famous 
Lyons donkey makes his entry in those volumes (pp. 315, 
316):- 

IS '"Twas by a poor ass, with a couple of large panniers at 
his back, who had just turned in to collect eleemosynary turnip 
tops and cabbage leaves, and stood dubious, with his two 
forefeet at the inside of the threshold, and with his two hinder 
feet towards the street, as not knowing very well whether 

20 he was to go in or no. 

''Now 'tis an animal (be in what hurry I may) I cannot 
bear to strike : there is a patient endurance of suffering wrote 
so unaffectedly in his looks and carriage which pleads so 
mightily for him, that it always disarms me, and to that 

25 degree that I do not like to speak unkindly to him : on the 
contrary, meet him where I will, whether in town or country, 
in cart or under panniers, whether in liberty or bondage, 
I have ever something civil to say to him on my part ; and, 
as one word begets another (if he has as httle to do as I), I 

30 generally fall into conversation with him ; and surely never 
is my imagination so busy as in framing responses from the 
etchings of his countenance ; and where those carry me not 
deep enough, in flying from my own heart into his, and seeing 
what is natural for an ass to think — as well as a man, upon 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 223 

the occasion. In truth, it is the only creature of all the classes 
of beings below me with whom I can do this. . . . With 
an ass I can commune forever. 

'"Come, Honesty,' said I, seeing it was impracticable to 
pass betwixt him and the gate, 'art thou for coming in or 5 
going out ? ' 

''The ass twisted his head round to look up the street. 

"'Well !' replied I, 'we'll wait a minute for thy driver.' 

"He turned his head thoughtfully about, and looked wist- 
fully the opposite way. 10 

" 'I understand thee perfectly,' answered I : 'if thou ta.kest 
a wrong step in this affair, he will cudgel thee to death. Well ! 
a minute is but a minute ; and if it save a fellow-creature a 
drubbing, it shall not be set down as ill spent.' 

"He was eating the stem of an artichoke as this discourse 15 
went on, and, in the little peevish contentions between hunger 
and unsavoriness, had dropped it out of his mouth half a 
dozen times, and had picked it up again. 'God help thee, 
Jack ! ' said I, 'thou hast a bitter breakfast on't — and many 
a bitter day's labor, and many a bitter blow, I fear, for its 20 
wages ! 'Tis all, all bitterness to thee — whatever life is 
to others ! And now thy mouth, if one knew the truth of it, 
is as bitter, I dare say, as soot' (for he had cast aside the 
stem), 'and thou hast not a friend perhaps in all this world 
that will give thee a macaroon. ' In saying this, I pulled out 25 
a paper of 'em, which I had just bought, and gave him one ; 
and at this moment that I am telling it, my heart smites me 
that there was more of pleasantry in the conceit of seeing 
how an ass would eat a macaroon than of benevolence in giving 
him one, which presided in the act. 30 

"When the ass had eaten his macaroon, I pressed him to 
come in. The poor beast was heavy loaded — his legs 
seemed to tremble under him — he hung rather backwards, 
and, as I pulled at his halter, it broke in my hand. He looked 



224 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

up pensive in my face: 'Don't thrash me with it; but if 

you will you may.' 'If I do,' said I, 'I'll be d ^."' 

A critic who refuses to see in this charming description wit, 
humor, pathos, a kind nature speaking, and a real sentiment, 

5 must be hard indeed to move and to please. A page or two 
farther we come to a description not less beautiful — a land- 
scape and figures, deliciously painted by one who had the 
keenest enjoyment and the most tremulous sensibility : — 
" 'Twas in the road between Nismes and Lunel, where is 

lo the best Muscatto wine in all France : the sun was set, they 
had done their work: the nymphs had tied up their hair 
afresh, and the swains were. preparing for a carousal. My 
mule made a dead point. "Tis the pipe and tambourine,' 
said I — 'I never will argue a point with one of your family 

15 as long as I live ; ' so leaping off his back, and kicking off one 
boot into this ditch and t'other into that, 'I'll take a dance,' 
said I, 'so stay you here.' 

"A sunburnt daughter of labor rose up from the group to 
meet me as I advanced towards them ; her hair, which was 

20 of a dark chestnut approaching to a black, was tied up in 
a knot, all but a single tress. 

" ' We want a cavalier,' said she, holding out both her hands, 
as if to offer them. 'And a cavaHer you shall have,' said I, 
taking hold of both of them. ' We could not have done with- 

25 out you,' said she, letting go one hand, with self-taught 
politeness, and leading me up with the other. 

"A lame youth, whom Apollo had recompensed with a 
pipe, and to which he had added a tambourine of his own 
accord, ran sweetly over the prelude, as he sat upon the bank. 

30 'Tie me up this tress instantly,' said Nannette, putting a 
piece of string into my hand. It taught me to forget I was 
a stranger. The whole knot fell down — we had been seven 
years acquainted. The youth struck the note upon the 
tambourine, his pipe followed, and off we bounded. 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 225 

"The sister of the youth — who had stolen her voice from 
heaven — sang alternately with her brother. 'Twas a Gas- 
coigne roundelay : ' Viva la joia, fidon la tristessa.^ The 
nymphs joined in unison, and their swains an octave below 
them. 5 

" Viva la joia was in Nannette's lips, viva la joia in her 
eyes. A transient spark of amity shot across the space 
betwixt us. She looked amiable. Why could I not live 
and end my days thus? 'Just Disposer of our joys and 
sorrows !' cried I, 'why could not a man sit down in the lap 10 
of content here, and dance, and sing, and say his prayers, 
and go to heaven with this nut-brown maid ? ' Capriciously 
did she bend her head on one side, and dance up insidious. 
'Then 'tis time to dance off,' quoth I." 

And with this pretty dance and chorus, the volume artfully 15 
concludes. Even here one can't give the whole description. 
There is not a page in Sterne's writing but has something 
that were better away, a latent corruption — a hint, as of 
an impure presence.* 

* "With regard to Sterne, and the charge of licentiousness which presses 
so seriously upon his character as a writer, I would remark that there is a sort 
of knowingness, the wit of which depends, ist, on the modesty it gives pain to; 
or, 2ndly, on the innocence and innocent ignorance over which it triumphs; 
or, 3rdly, on a certain oscillation in the individual's own mind between the 
remaining good and the encroaching evil of his nature — a sort. of dallying with 
the devil — a fluxionary art of combining courage and cowardice, as when a man 
snuflfs a candle with his fingers for the first time, or better still, perhaps, like 
that trembling daring with which a child touches a hot tea-urn, because it has 
been forbidden ; so that the mind has its own white and black angel ; the same 
or similar amusement as may be supposed to take place between an old deb- 
auchee and a prude — the feeling resentment, on the one hand, from a pru- 
dential anxiety to preserve appearances and have a character; and, on the 
other, an inward sympathy with the enemy. We have only to suppose society 
innocent, and then nine tenths of this sort of wit would be like a stone that falls 
in snow, making no sound, because exciting no resistance ; the remainder rests 
on its being an offense against the good manners of human nature itself. 

"This source, unworthy as it is, may doubtless be combined with wit, droll- 
ery, fancy, and even humor ; and we have only to regret the misalliance ; but 



226 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

Some of that dreary double entendre may be attributed to 
freer times and manners than ours, but not all. The foul 
satyr's eyes leer out of the leaves constantly : the last words 
the famous author wrote were bad and wicked — the last 
5 lines the poor stricken wretch penned were for pity and par- 
don. I think of these past writers and of one who lives 
amongst us now, and am grateful for the innocent laughter 
and the sweet and unsullied page which the author of " David 
Copperfield" gives to my children. 



lO 



IS 



"Jete sur cette boule, 
Laid, chetif et souffrant ; 
Etouflfe dans la foule, 
Faute d'etre assez grand : 

Une plainte touchante 

De ma bouche sortit. 

Le bon Dieu me dit : Chante, 

Chante, pauvre petit ! 



Chanter ou je m'abuse, 
Est ma tache ici-bas. 
20 Tons ceux qu'ainsi j 'amuse 

Ne m'aimeront-ils pas ? " 

In those charming lines of Beranger, one may fancy de- 
scribed the career, the sufferings, the genius, the gentle nature 
of Goldsmith, and the esteem in which we hold him. Who, 
25 of the millions whom he has amused, doesn't love him ? To 
be the most beloved of English writers, what a title that is 

that the latter are quite distinct from the former, may be made evident by 
abstracting in our imagination the morality of the characters of Mr. Shandy, 
my Uncle Toby, and Trim, which are all antagonists to this spurious sort of 
wit, from the rest of 'Tristram Shandy,' and by supposing, instead of them, 
the presence of two or three callous debauchees. The result will be pure disgust. 
Sterne cannot be too severely censured for thus using the best dispositions 
of our nature as the panders and condiments for the basest." — Coleridge, 
Literary Remains, vol. i. pp. 141, 142. 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 227 

for a man ! * A wild youth, wayward, but full of tender- 
ness and affection, quits the country village, where his boy- 
hood has been passed in happy musing, in idle shelter, in 
fond longing to see the great world out of doors, and achieve 
name and fortune : and after years of dire struggle, and s 
neglect and poverty, his heart turning back as fondly to his 
native place as it had longed eagerly for change when shel- 
tered there, he writes a book and a poem, full of the recollec- 
tions and feelings of home : he paints the friends and scenes 
of his youth, and peoples Auburn and Wakefield with remem- 10 
brances of Lissoy. Wander he must, but he carries away 
a home-relic with him, and dies with it on his breast. His 
nature is truant; in repose it longs for change: as on the 
journey it looks back for- friends and quiet. He passes to-day 
in building an air-castle for to-morrow, or in writing y ester- 15 
day's elegy; and he would fly away this hour, but that a 
cage and necessity keep him. What is the charm of his verse, 
of his style, and humor? His sweet regrets, his delicate 
compassion, his soft smile, his tremulous sympathy, the weak- 
ness which he owns ? Your love for him is half pity. You 20 
come hot and tired from the day's battle, and this sweet 
minstrel sings to you. Who could harm the kind vagrant 
harper? Whom did he ever hurt? He carries no weapon, 
save the harp on which he plays to you ; and with which he 
delights great and humble, young and old, the captains in 25 

* "He was a friend to virtue, and in his most playful pages never forgets . 
what is due to it. A gentleness, delicacy, and purity of feeling distinguishes 
whatever he wrote, and bears a correspondence to the generosity of a disposition 
which knew no bounds but his last guinea. . . . 

"The admirable ease and grace of the narrative, as well as the pleasing 
truth with which the principal characters are designed, make the 'Vicar of 
Wakefield' one of the most delicious morsels of fictitious composition on which 
the human mind was ever employed. 

"... We read the 'Vicar of Wakefield' in youth and in age — we return 
to it again and again, and bless the memory of an author who contrives so well 
to reconcile us to human nature." — Sir Walter Scott. 



2 28 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

the tents, or the soldiers round the fire, or the women and 
children in the villages, at whose porches he stops and sings 
his simple songs of love and beauty. With that sweet story 
of the ''Vicar of Wakefield" * he has found entry into every 
5 castle and every hamlet in Europe. Not one of us, however 

* "Now Herder came," says Goethe in his Autobiography, relating his first 
acquaintance with Goldsmith's masterpiece, ','and together with his great knowl- 
edge brought many other aids, and the later publications besides. Among 
these he announced to us the 'Vicar of Wakefield' as an excellent work, with 
the German translation of which he would make us acquainted by reading it 
aloud to us himself. . . . 

"A Protestant country clergyman is perhaps the most beautiful subject for 
a modern idyl ; he appears like Melchizedeck, as priest and king in one person. 
To the most innocent situation which can be imagined on earth, to that of a 
husbandman, he is, for the most part, united by similarity of occupation as 
well as by equality in family relationship ; he is a father, a master of a family, 
an agriculturist, and thus perfectly a member of the community. On this pure, 
beautiful earthly foundation rests his higher calling ; to him is it given to guide 
men through life, to take care of their spiritual education, to bless them at all 
the leading epochs of their existence, to instruct, to strengthen, to console them, 
and, if consolation is not sufficient for the present, to call up and guarantee the 
hope of a happier future. Imagine such a man with pure human sentiments, 
strong enough not to deviate from them under any circumstances, and by this 
already elevated above the multitude of whom one cannot expect purity and 
firmness; give him the learning necessary for his office, as well as a cheerful, 
equable activity, which is even passionate, as it neglects no moment to do good 
— and you will have him well endowed. But at the same time add the necessary 
limitation, so. that he must not only pause in a small circle, but may also, per- 
chance, pass over to a smaller; grant him good nature, placability, resolution, 
and everything else praiseworthy that springs from a decided character, and 
over all this a cheerful spirit of compliance, and a smiling toleration of his own 
failings and those of others, — then you will have put together pretty well the 
image of our excellent Wakefield. 

"The delineation of this character on his course of life through joys and 
sorrows, the ever-increasing interest of the story, by the combination of the 
entirely natural with the strange and the singular, make this novel one of the 
best which have ever been written ; besides this, it has the great advantage that 
it is quite moral, nay, in a pure sense. Christian — represents the reward of a 
good will and perseverance in the right, strengthens an unconditional confidence 
in God, and attests the final triumph of good over evil ; and all this without a 
trace of cant or pedantry. The author was preserved from both of these by an 
elevation of mind that shows itself throughout in the form of irony, by which 
this little work must appear to us as wise as it is amiable. The author. Dr. 
Goldsmith, has, without question, a great insight into the moral world, into its 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 229 

busy or hard, but once or twice in our lives has passed an 
evening with him, and undergone the charm of his delight- 
ful music. 

Goldsmith's father was no doubt the good Doctor Primrose, 
whom we all of us know.* Swift was yet alive, when the 5 
little Oliver was born at Pallas, or Pallasmore, in the county 
of Longford, in Ireland. In 1730, two years after the child's 

strength and its infirmities ; but at the same time he can thankfully acknowledge 
that he is an Englishman, and reckon highly the advantages which his country 
and his nation afford him. The family, with the delineation of which he occupies 
himself, stands upon one of the last steps of citizen comfort, and yet comes in 
contact with the highest ; its narrow circle, which becomes still more contracted, 
touches upon the great world through the natural and civil course of things; 
this little skiff floats on the agitated waves of English Hfe, and in weal or woe it 
has to expect injury or help from the vast fleet which sails around it. 

"I may suppose that my readers know this work, and have it in memory; 
whoever hears it named for the first time here, as well as he who is induced to 
read it again, will thank me." — Goethe. Truth and Poetry; from my own 
Life. (English Translation, vol. i. pp. 378, 379.) 

"He seems from infancy to have been compounded of two natures, one 
bright, the other blundering ; or to have had fairy gifts laid in his cradle by the 
'good people' who haunted his birthplace, the old goblin mansion on the banks 
of the Inny. "He carries with him the wayward elfin spirit, if we may so term 
it, throughout his career. His fairy gifts are of no avail at school, academy, or 
college: they unfit him for close study and practical science, and render him 
heedless of everything that does not address itself to his poetical imagination 
and genial and festive feelings; they dispose him to break away from restraint, 
to stroll about hedges, green lanes, and haunted streams, to revel with jovial 
companions, or to rove the country like a gypsy in quest of odd adventures. . . . 
Though his circumstances often compelled him to associate with the poor,' they 
never could betray him into companionship with the depraved. His relish for 
humor, and for the study of character, as we have before observed, brought 
him often into convivial company of a vulgar kind ; but he discriminated between 
their vulgarity and their amusing qualities, or rather wrought from the whole 
store familiar features of life which form the staple of his most popular writings." 
— Washington Irving. 

* "The family of Goldsmith, Goldsmyth, or, as it was occasionally written, 
Gouldsmith, is of considerable standing in Ireland, and seems always to have 
held a respectable station in society. Its origin is English, supposed to be 
derived from that which was long settled at Crayford in Kent." — Prior's Life 
of Goldsmith. 

Oliver's father, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather were clergy- 
men; and two of them married clergymen's daughters. 



230 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

birth, Charles Goldsmith removed his family to Lissoy, in 
the county Westmeath, that sweet ''Auburn" which every 
person who hears me has seen in fancy. Here the kind par- 
son * brought up his eight children ; and loving all the world, 
5 as his son says, fancied all the world loved him. He had a 
crowd of poor dependants besides those hungry children. He 
kept an open table; round which sat flatterers and poor 
friends, who laughed at the honest rector's many jokes, and 
ate the produce of his seventy acres of farm. Those who 

10 have seen an Irish house in the present day can fancy that 
one of Lissoy. The old beggar still has his allotted corner by 
the kitchen turf ; the maimed old soldier still gets his pota- 
toes and buttermilk; the poor cottier still asks his honor's 
charity, and prays God bless his reverence for the six- 

15 pence ; the ragged pensioner still takes his place by right and 
sufferance. There's still a crowd in the kitchen, and a crowd 
round the parlor table, profusion, confusion, kindness, pov- 
erty. If an Irishman comes to London to make his fortune, 
he has a half dozen of Irish dependants who take a percentage 

20 of his earnings. The good Charles Goldsmith j left but little 

* "At church, with meek and unaffected grace, 
His looks adorn'd the venerable place ; 
Truth from his lips prevail'd with double sway, 
And fools who came to scoff remain'd to pray. 
The service past, around the pious man, 
With steady zeal each honest rustic ran ; 
E'en children follow'd with endearing wile. 
And pluck'd his gown to share the good man's smile. 
His ready smile a parent's warmth exprest. 
Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distrest ; 
To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given, 
But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven. 
As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form, 
Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm. 
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, 
Eternal sunshine settles on its head." — The Deserted Village. 

t "In May this year (1768), he lost his brother, the Rev. Henry Goldsmith, 
V)r whom he had been unable to obtain preferment in the Church. . . . 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 231 

provision for his hungry race when death summoned him; 
and one of his daughters being engaged to a Squire of rather 
superior dignity, Charles Goldsmith impoverished the rest 
of his family to provide the girl with a dowry. 

The smallpox, which scourged all Europe at that time, and 5 
ravaged the roses off the cheeks of half the world, fell foul of 
poor little Oliver's face, when the child was eight years old, 
and left him scarred and disfigured for his life. An old woman 
in his father's village taught him his letters, and pronounced 
him a dimce : Paddy Byrne, the hedge-schoolmaster, took 10 
him in hand : and from Paddy Byrne he was transmitted to a 
clergyman at Elphin. When a child was sent to school in 
those days, the classic phrase was that he was placed under 
Mr. So-and-so's ferule. Poor little ancestors ! It is hard to 
think how ruthlessly you were birched ; and how much of 15 
needless whipping and tears our small forefathers had to 
undergo ! A relative — kind uncle Contarine — took the 
main charge of little Noll ; who went through his school days 
righteously doing as little work as he could: robbing or- 
chards, playing at ball, and making his pocket money fly 20 
about whenever fortune sent it to him. Everybody knows the 
story of that famous '' Mistake of a Night," when the young 

"... To the curacy of Kilkenny West, the moderate stipend of which, 
forty pounds a year, is sufficiently celebrated by his brother's lines. It has 
been stated that Mr. Goldsmith added a school, which, after having been held 
at more than one place in the vicinity, was finally fixed at Lissoy. Here his 
talents and industry gave it celebrity, and under his care the sons of many of 
the neighboring gentry received their education. A fever breaking out among 
the boys about 1765, they dispersed for a time, but reassembling at Athlone, 
he continued his scholastic labors there until the time of his death, which hap- 
pened, like that of his brother, about the forty-fifth year of his age. He was 
a man of an excellent heart and an amiable disposition." — Prior's Goldsmith. 

"Where'er I roam, whatever realms to see, 
My heart, untravel'd, fondly turns to thee : 
Still to my brother turns with ceaseless pain. 
And drags at each remove a lengthening chain." 

— The Traveler. 



232 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

schoolboy, provided with a guinea and a nag, rode up to the 
''best house" in Ardagh, called for the landlord's company 
over a bottle of wine at supper, and for a hot cake for breakfast 
in the morning ; and found, when he asked for the bill, that 
5 the best house was Squire Featherstone's, and not the inn 
for which he mistook it. Who does not know every story 
about Goldsmith ? That is a delightful and fantastic picture 
of the child dancing and capering about in the kitchen at 
home, when the old fiddler gibed at him for his ugliness, and 

lo called him ^sop ; and little Noll made his repartee of "Her- 
alds proclaim aloud this saying — See ^sop dancing and his 
monkey playing." One can fancy a queer pitiful look of 
humor and appeal upon that little scarred face — the funny 
little dancing figure, the funny little brogue. In his life, and 

15 his writings, which are the honest expression of it, he is con- 
stantly bewailing that homely face and person ; anon he 
surveys them in the glass ruefully ; and presently assumes the 
most comical dignity. He likes to deck out his little person 
in splendor and fine colors. He presented himself to be 

20 examined for ordination in a pair of scarlet breeches, and said 
honestly that he did not like to go into the Church, because 
he was fond of colored clothes. When he tried to practice 
as a doctor, he got by hook or by crook a black velvet suit, 
and looked as big and grand as he could, and kept his hat 

25 over a patch on the old coat : in better days he bloomed out in 
plum color, in blue silk, and in new velvet. For some of those 
splendors the heirs and assignees of Mr. Filby, the tailor, have 
never been paid to this day : perhaps the kind tailor and his 
creditor have met and settled their httle account in Hades.* 

* "When Goldsmith died, half the unpaid bill he owed to Mr. William Filby 
(amounting in all to £79) was for clothes supplied to this nephew Hodson." — 
Forster's Goldsmith, p. 520. 

As this nephew Hodson ended his days (see the same page) "a prosperous 
Irish gentleman," it is not unreasonable to wish that he had cleared off Mr. 
Filby's bill. 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 233 

They showed until lately a window at Trinity College,* 
Dublin, on which the name of O. Goldsmith was engraved 
with a diamond. Whose diamond was it? Not the young 
sizar's, who made but a poor figure in that place of learning. 
He was idle, penniless, and fond of pleasure if he learned hiss 
way early to the pawnbroker's shop. He wrote ballads, they 
say, for the street singers, who paid him a crown for a poem : 
and his pleasure was to steal out at night and hear his verses 
sung. He was chastised by his tutor for giving a dance in 
his rooms, and took the box on the ear so much to heart, 10 
that he packed up his all, pawned his books and little prop- 
erty, and disappeared from college and family. He said he 
intended to go to America, but when his money was spent, 
the young prodigal came home ruefully, and the good folks 
there killed their calf — it was but a lean one — and welcomed 15 
him back. 

After college he hung about his mother's house, and lived 
for some years the life of a buckeen — passed a month with 
this relation and that, a year with one patron, a great deal of 
time at the public house. J Tired of this life, it was resolved 20 
that he should go to London, and study at the Temple ; but 
he got no farther on the road to London and the woolsack 
than Dublin, where he gambled away the fifty pounds given 
to him for his outfit, and whence he returned to the inde- 
fatigable forgiveness of home. Then he determined to be a 25 
doctor, and uncle Contarine helped him to a couple of years at 
Edinburgh. Then from Edinburgh he felt that he ought to 

* [The pane is still preserved in the library of Trinity College.] 

t "Poor fellow ! He hardly knew an ass from a mule, nor a turkey from a 
goose, but when he saw it on the table." — Cumberland's Memoirs. 

X "These youthful follies, like the fermentation of liquors, often disturb the 
mind only in order to its future refinement : a life spent in phlegmatic apathy 
resembles those liquors which never ferment, and are consequently always 
muddy." — Goldsmith. Memoir of Voltaire. 

"He [Johnson] said 'Goldsmith was a plant that flowered late. There 
appeared nothing remarkable about him when he was young.'" — Boswell. 



234 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

hear the famous professors of Leyden and Paris, and wrote 
most amusing pompous letters to his uncle about the great 
Farheim, Du Petit, and Duhamel du Monceau, whose lectures 
he proposed to follow. If uncle Contarine believed those 
5 letters — if Oliver's mother believed that story which the 
youth related of his going to Cork, with the purpose of em- 
barking for America, of his having paid his passage-money, 
and having sent his kit on board ; of the anonymous captain 
sailing away with Oliver's valuable luggage in a nameless 

lo ship, never to return ; if uncle Contarine and the mother at 
Ballymahon believed his stories, they must have been a very 
simple pair ; as it was a very simple rogue indeed who cheated 
them. When the lad, after failing in his clerical examination, 
after failing in his plan for studying the law, took leave of 

15 these projects and of his parents, and set out for Edinburgh, 
he saw mother, and uncle, and lazy Ballymahon, and green 
native turf, and sparkling river for the last time. He was 
never to look on old Ireland more, and only in fancy revisit 

her. 

20 "But me not destined such delights to share, 

My prime of hfe in wandering spent and care, 
Impelled, with steps unceasing to pursue 
Some fleeting good that mocks me with the view ; 
That like the circle bounding earth and skies 

25 Allures from far, yet, as I follow, flies : 

My fortune leads to traverse realms alone, 
And find no spot of all the world my own." 

I spoke in a former lecture of that high courage which en- 
abled Fielding, in spite of disease, remorse, and poverty, 

30 always to retain a cheerful spirit and to keep his manly be- 
nevolence and love of truth intact, as if these treasures had 
been confided to him for the public benefit, and he was ac- 
countable to posterity for their honorable employ; and a 
constancy equally happy and admirable I think was shown by 

35 Goldsmith, whose sweet and friendly nature bloomed kindly 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 235 

always in the midst of a life's storm, and rain, and bitter 
weather.* The poor fellow was never so friendless but he 
could befriend some one ; never so pinched and wretched but 
he could give of his crust, and speak his word of compassion. 
If he had but his flute left, he could give that, and makes 
the children happy in the dreary London court. He could 
give the coals in that queer coal-scuttle we read of to his poor 
neighbor : he could give away his blankets in college to the 
poor widow, and warm himself as he best might in the feath- 
ers: he could pawn his coat to save his landlord from jail: 10 
when he was a school-usher he spent his earnings in treats for 
the boys, and the good-natured schoolmaster's wife said justly 
that she ought to keep Mr. Goldsmith's money as well as the 
young gentlemen's. When he met his pupils in later life, 
nothing would satisfy the Doctor but he must treat them still. 15 
"Have you seen the print of me after Sir Joshua Reynolds ? " 
he asked of one of his old pupils. "Not seen it ? not bought 
it? Sure, Jack, if your picture had been published, I'd 
not have been without it half-an-hour." His purse and his 
heart were everybody's, and his friends' as much as his own. 20 
When he was at the height of his reputation, and the Earl of 
Northumberland, going as Lord Lieutenant to Ireland, asked 
if he could be of any service to Doctor Goldsmith, Goldsmith 
recommended his brother, and not himself, to the great 
man. "My patrons," he gallantly said, "are the booksellers, 25 
and I want no others." f Hard patrons they were, and hard 

*"An 'inspired idiot,' Goldsmith, hangs strangely about him [Johnson]. 
. . . Yet, on the whole, there is no evil in the 'gooseberry fool,' but rather 
much good; of a finer, if of a weaker sort than Johnson's; and all the more 
genuine that he himself could never become conscious of it, — though xmhappily 
never cease attempting to become so : the author of the genuine ' Vicar of Wake- 
field,' nill he will he, must needs fly towards such a mass of genuine manhood." 
■ — Carlyle's Essays (2d ed.), vol. iv. p. 91. 

t "At present, the few poets of England no longer depend on the great for 
subsistence; they have now no other patrons but the public, and the public, 
collectively considered, is a good and generous master. It is indeed too fre- 



236 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

work he did ; but he did not complain much : if in his early 
writings some bitter words escaped him, some allusions to 
neglect and poverty, he withdrew these expressions when his 
works were republished, and better days seemed to open for 
5 him ; and he did not care to complain that printer or pub- 
lisher had overlooked his merit, or left him poor. The Court 
face was turned from honest Oliver, the Court patronized 
Beattie ; the fashion did not shine on him — fashion adored 
Sterne.* Fashion pronounced Kelly to be the great writer of 

quently mistaken as to the merits of every candidate for favor ; but to make 
amends it is never mistaken long. A performance indeed may be forced for a 
time into reputation, but, destitute of real merit, it soon sinks ; time, the touch- 
stone of what is truly valuable, will soon discover the fraud, and an author 
should never arrogate to himself any share of success till his works have been 
read at least ten years with satisfaction. 

"A man of letters at present, whose works are valuable, is perfectly sensible 
of their value. Every polite member of the community, by buying what he 
writes, contributes to reward him. The ridicule, therefore, of living in a garret 
might have been wit in the last age, but continues such no longer, because no 
longer true. A writer of real merit now may easily be rich, if his heart be set 
only on fortune ; and for those who have no merit, it is but fit that such should 
remain in merited obscurity." — Goldsmith. Citizen of the World, Let. 84. 

* Goldsmith attacked Sterne obviously enough, censuring his indecency 
and slighting his wit, and ridiculing his manner, in the 53d letter in the " Citizen 
of the World." 

"As in common conversation," says he, "the best way to make the audience 
laugh is by first laughing yourself; so in writing, the properest manner is to 
show an attempt at humor, which will pass upon most for humor in reahty. 
To effect this, readers must be treated with the most perfect familiarity ; in one 
page the author is to make them a low bow, and in the next to pull them by the 
nose ; he must talk in riddles, and then send them to bed in order to dream for 
the solution," &c. 

Sterne's humorous mot on the subject of the gravest part of the charges, 
then, as now, made against him, may perhaps be quoted here, from the excel- 
lent, the respectable Sir Walter Scott : — 

"Soon after 'Tristram' had appeared, Sterne asked a Yorkshire lady of 
fortune and condition, whether she had read his book. 'I have not, Mr. Sterne,' 
was the answer ; ' and to be plain with you, I am informed it is not proper for 
female perusal.' 'My dear good lady,' replied the author, 'do not be gulled 
by such stories; the book is like your young heir there' (pointing to a child 
of three years old, who was rolling on the carpet in his white tunic) : ' he shows 
at times a good deal that is usually concealed, but it is all in perfect innocence.'" 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 237 

comedy of his day. A little — not ill-humor, but plaintive- 
ness — a little betrayal of wounded pride which he showed 
render him not the less amiable. The author of the ''Vicar of 
Wakefield" had a right to protest when Newbery kept back 
the manuscript for two years ; had a right to be a little peev- 5 
ish with Sterne ; a little angry when Colman's actors declined 
their parts in his delightful comedy, when the manager refused 
to have a scene painted for it, and pronounced its damnation 
before hearing. He had not the great public with him ; but 
he had the noble Johnson, and the admirable Reynolds, and 10 
the great Gibbon, and the great Burke, and the great Fox — 
friends and admirers illustrious indeed, as famous as those 
who, fifty years before, sat round Pope's table. 

Nobody knows, and I dare say Goldsmith's buoyant temper 
kept no account of, all the pains which he endured during 15 
the early period of his literary career. Should any man of 
letters in our day have to bear up against such, Heaven grant 
he may come out of the period of misfortune with such a 
pure kind heart as that which Goldsmith obstinately bore 
in his breast. The insults to which he had to submit are 20 
shocking to read of — slander, contumely, vulgar satire, 
brutal malignity perverting his commonest motives and 
actions ; he had his share of these, and one's anger is roused 
at reading of them, as it is at seeing a woman insulted or a 
child assaulted, at the notion that a creature so very gentle 25 
and weak, and full of love, should have had to suffer so. And 
he had worse than insult to undergo — to own to fault and 
deprecate the anger of rufhans. There is a letter of his ex- 
tant to one Griffiths, a bookseller, in which poor Goldsmith 
is forced to confess that certain books sent by Griffiths are 30 
in the hands of a friend from whom Goldsmith had been 
forced to borrow money. "He was wild, sir," Johnson said, 
speaking of Goldsmith to Boswell, with his great, wise benevo- 
lence and noble mercifulness of heart — "Dr. Goldsmith was 



238 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

wild, sir; but he is so no more." Ah ! if we pity the good 
and weak man who suffers undeservedly, let us deal very 
gently with him from whom misery extorts not only tears, 
but shame ; let us think humbly and charitably of the human 
5 nature that suffers so sadly and falls so low. Whose turn 
may it be to-morrow? What weak heart, confident before 
trial, may not succumb under temptation invincible ? Cover 
the good man who has been vanquished — cover his face and 
pass on. 

10 For the last half dozen years of his life. Goldsmith was far 
removed from the pressure of any ignoble necessity : and in 
the receipt, indeed, of a pretty large income from the book- 
sellers his patrons. Had he lived but a few years more, his 
public fame would have been as great as his private reputa- 

15 tion, and he might have enjoyed alive a part of that esteem 
which his country has ever since paid to the vivid and versatile 
genius who has touched on almost every subject of literature, 
and touched nothing that he did not adorn. Except in rare 
instances, a man is known in our profession, and esteemed as a 

20 skillful workman, years before the lucky hit which trebles his 
usual gains, and stamps him a popular author. In the strength 
of his age, and the dawn of his reputation, having for backers 
and friends the most illustrious literary men of his time,* 
fame and prosperity might have been in store for Goldsmith, 

25 had fate so willed it, and, at forty-six, had not sudden disease 
carried him off. I say prosperity rather than competence, for 

* " Goldsmith told us that he was now busy in writing a Natural History ; 
and that he might have full leisure for it, he had taken lodgings at a farmer's 
house, near to the six-mile stone in the Edgware Road, and had carried down 
his books in two returned post chaises. He said he believed the farmer's family 
thought him an odd character, similar to that in which the Spectator appeared 
to his landlady and her children; he was The Gentleman. Mr. Mickle, the 
translator of the Lusiad, and I, went to visit him at this place a few days after- 
wards. He was not at home ; but having a curiosity to see his apartment, we 
went in, and found curious scraps of descriptions of animals scrawled upon the 
wall with a blacklead pencil." — Boswell. 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 239 

it is probable that no sum could have put order into his affairs, 
or sufficed for his irreclaimable habits of dissipation. It must 
be remembered that he owed £2000 when he died. "Was 
ever poet," Johnson asked, " so trusted before ? " As has been 
the case with many another good fellow of his nation, his life s 
was tracked and his substance wasted by crowds of hungry 
beggars and lazy dependants. If they came at a lucky time 
(and be sure they knew his affairs better than he did himself 
and watched his pay day), he gave them of his money: if 
they begged on empty-purse days, he gave them his promis- 10 
sory bills : or he treated them to a tavern where he had credit ; 
or he obliged them with an order upon honest Mr. Filby for 
coats, for which he paid as long as he could earn, and until 
the shears of Filby were to cut for him no more. Staggering 
under a load of debt and labor, tracked by bailiffs and re- 15 
proachful creditors, running from a hundred poor dependants, 
whose appealing looks were perhaps the hardest of all pains 
for him to bear, devising fevered plans for the morrow, new 
histories, new comedies, all sorts of new literary schemes, 
flying from all these into seclusion, and out of seclusion into 20 
pleasure ■ — at last, at five-and-forty, death seized him and 
closed his career.* I have been many a time in the chambers 
in the Temple which were his, and passed up the staircase, 
which Johnson and Burke and Reynolds trod to see their 
friend, their poet, their kind Goldsmith — the stair on which 25 
the poor women sat weeping bitterly when they heard that 
the greatest and most generous of all men was dead within , 

* "When Goldsmith was dying, Dr. Turton said to him, 'Your pulse is in 
greater disorder than it should be, from the degree of fever which you have; 
is your mind at ease?' Goldsmith answered it was not." — Dr. Johnson (in 
Boswell) . 

" Chambers, you find, is gone far, and poor Goldsmith is gone much further. 
He died of a fever, exasperated, as I believe, by the fear of distress. He had 
raised money and squandered it, by every artifice of acquisition and folly of 
expense. But let not his failings be remembered ; he was a very great man." — 
Dr. Johnson to Boswell, July 5th, 1774. 



240 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

the black oak door.* Ah ! it was a different lot from that 
for which the poor fellow sighed, when he wrote with heart 
yearning for home those most charming of all fond verses, in 
which he fancies he revisits Auburn : — 

5 " Here, as I take my solitary rounds, 

Amidst thy tangling walks and ruined grounds, 
And, many a year elapsed, return to view 
Where once the cottage stood, the hawthorn grew, ^ 
Remembrance wakes, with all her busy train, 
lo Swells at my breast, and turns the past to pain. 

" In all my wanderings round this world of care, 
In all my griefs — and God has given my share — ■ 
I still had hopes, my latest hours to crown. 
Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down; 

15 To husband out life's taper at the close, 

And keep the flame from wasting by repose ; 
I still had hopes — for pride attends us still — 
Amidst the swains to show my book-learned skill, 
Around my fire an evening group to draw, 

20 And tell of all I felt and all I saw ; 

And, as a hare, whom hounds and horns pursue. 
Pants to the place from whence at first he flew — 
I still had hopes, my long vexations past. 
Here to return, and die at home at last. 

25 " O blest retirement, friend to life's decline ! 

Retreats from care that never must be mine — 

* "When Burke was told [of Goldsmith's death] he burst into tears. Rey- 
nolds was in his painting-room when the messenger went to him; but at once 
he laid his pencil aside, which in times of great family distress he had not been 
known to do, left his painting- room, and did not reenter it that day. . . . 

"The staircase of Brick Court is said to have been filled with mourners, the 
reverse of domestic ; women without a home, without domesticity of any kind, 
with no friend but him they had come to weep for; outcasts of that great, 
solitary, wicked city, to whom he had never forgotten to be kind and charitable. 
And he had domestic mourners, too. His cofl5n was reopened at the request of 
Miss Horneck and her sister (such was the regard he was known to have for 
them !) that a lock might be cut from his hair. It was in Mrs. Gwyn's possession 
when she died, after nearly seventy years." — Forster's Goldsmith. 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 241 

How blest is he who crowns, in shades hke these, 

A youth of labor with an age of ease ; 

Who quits a world where strong temptations try, 

And, since 'tis hard to combat, learns to fiy ! 

For him no wretches born to work and weep c 

Explore the mine or tempt the dangerous deep ; 

No surly porter stands in guilty state 

To spurn imploring famine from the gate : 

But on he moves to meet his latter end. 

Angels around befriending virtue's friend ; 10 

Sinks to the grave with unperceived decay, 

Whilst resignation gently slopes the way ; . 

And all his prospects brightening to the last. 

His heaven commences ere the world be past." 

In these verses, I need not say with what melody, with what 15 
touching truth, with what exquisite beauty of comparison — 
as indeed in hundreds more pages of the writings of this honest 
soul — the whole character of the man is told — his humble 
confession of faults and weakness ; his pleasant Httle vanity, 
and desire that his village should admire him ; his simple 20 
scheme of good in which everybody was to be happy — 
no beggar was to be refused his dinner — nobody in fact was 
to work much, and he to be the harmless chief of the Utopia, 
and the monarch of the Irish Yvetot. He would have told again, 
and without fear of their f aihng, those famous jokes * which 25 
had hung fire in London ; he would have talked of his great 

^ Goldsmith's incessant desire of being conspicuous in company was the 
occasion of his sometimes appearing to such disadvantage, as one should hardly 
have supposed possible in a man of his genius. When his literary reputation had 
risen deservedly high, and his society was much courted, he became very jealous 
of the extraordinary attention which was everywhere paid to Johnson. One 
evening, in a circle of wits, he found fault with me for talking of Johnson as 
entitled to the honor of unquestionable superiority. 'Sir,' said he, 'you are for 
making a monarchy of what should be a republic' 

"He was still more mortified, when, talking in a company with fluent vivacity, 
and, as he flattered himself, to the admiration of all present, a German who sat 
next him, and perceived Johnson rolling himself as if about to speak, suddenly 
stopped him, saying, ' Stay, stay — Toctor Shonson is going to zay zomething.' 



242 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

friends of the Club — of my Lord Clare and my Lord Bishop, 
my Lord Nugent — sure he knew them intimately, and was 
hand and glove with some of the best men in town — and 
he would have spoken of Johnson and of Burke, and of Sir 
5 Joshua who had painted him — and he would have told won- 
derful sly stories of Ranelagh and the Pantheon, and the 
masquerades at Madame Cornelys; and he would have 
toasted, with a sigh, the Jessamy Bride — the lovely Mary 
Horneck. 

This was no doubt very provoking, especially to one so irritable as Goldsmith, 
who frequently mentioned it with strong expressions of indignation. 

"It may also be observed that Goldsmith was sometimes content to be 
treated with an easy familiarity, but upon occasions would be consequential and 
important. An instance of this occurred in a small particular. Johnson had a 
way of contracting the names of his friends, as Beauclerk, Beau; Boswell, 
Bozzy. ... I remember one day, when Tom Davies was telling that Doctor 
Johnson said — 'We are all in labor for a name to Goldy's play,' Goldsmith 
seemed displeased that such a liberty should be taken with his name, and said, 
'I have often desired him not to call me Goldy.'" 

This is one of several of Boswell's depreciatory mentions of Goldsmith — 
which may well irritate biographers and admirers, and also those who take 
that more kindly and more profound view of Boswell's own character, which 
was opened up by Mr. Carlyle's famous article on his book. No wonder that 
Mr. Irving calls Boswell an "incarnation of toadyism." And the worst of it 
is, that Johnson himself has suffered from this habit of the Laird of Auchin- 
leck's. People are apt to forget under what Boswellian stimulus the great 
Doctor uttered many hasty things : — things no more indicative of the nature 
of the depths of his character than the phosphoric gleaming of the sea, when 
struck at night, is indicative of radical corruption of nature ! In truth, it is 
clear enough on the whole that both Johnson and Goldsmith appreciated each 
other, and that they mutually knew it. They were, as it were, tripped up and 
flung against each other, occasionally, by the blundering and silly gambolling 
of people in company. 

Something must be allowed for Boswell's "rivalry for Johnson's good graces" 
with OHver (as Sir Walter Scott has remarked), for Oliver was intimate with the 
Doctor before his biographer was, — and, as we all remember, marched off with 
him to "take tea with Mrs. Williams" before Boswell had advanced to that 
honorable degree of intimacy. But, in truth, Boswell — though he perhaps 
showed more talent in his delineation of the Doctor than is generally ascribed 
to him — had not faculty to take a fair view of two great men at a time. Besides, 
' as Mr. Forster justly remarks, "he was impatient of Goldsmith from the first 
hour of their acquaintance." — Life and Adventures, p. 292. 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 243 

The figure of that charming young lady forms one of the 
prettiest recollections of Goldsmith's life. She and her 
beautiful sister, who married Bunbury, the graceful and 
humorous amateur artist of those days when Gilray had but 
just begun to try his powers, were among the kindest and 5 
dearest of Goldsmith's many friends, cheered and pitied him, 
traveled abroad with him, made him welcome at their home, 
and gave him many a pleasant holiday. He bought his finest 
clothes to figure at their country house at Barton — he wrote 
them droll verses. They loved him, laughed at him, played 10 
him tricks and made him happy. He asked for a loan from 
Garrick, and Garrick kindly supplied him, to enable him to 
go to Barton : but there were to be no more holidays and only 
one brief struggle more for poor Goldsmith. A lock of his 
hair was taken from the cofiin and given to the Jessamy Bride. 15 
She lived quite into our time. Hazlitt saw her an old lady, 
but beautiful still, in Northcote's painting-room, who told the 
eager critic how proud she always was that Goldsmith had 
admired her. The younger Colman has left a touching remi- 
niscence of him (vol. i. 63, 64) : 20 

"I was only five years old," he says, "when Goldsmith took 
me on his knee one evening whilst he was drinking coffee with 
my father, and began to play with me, which amiable act I 
returned, with the ingratitude of a peevish brat, by giving 
him a very smart slap on the face: it must have been a 25 
tingler, for it left the marks of my spiteful paw on his cheek. 
This infantile outrage was followed by summary justice, and 
I was locked up by my indignant father in an adjoining room 
to undergo solitary imprisonment in the dark. Here I be- 
gan to howl and scream most abominably, which was no bad 30 
step towards my liberation, since those who were not inclined 
to pity me might be likely to set me free for the purpose of 
abating a nuisance. 



244 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

"At length a generous friend appeared to extricate me from 
jeopardy, and that generous friend was no other than the 
man I had so wantonly molested by assault and battery — it 
was the tender-hearted Doctor himself, with a lighted candle 
5 in his hand and a smile upon his countenance, which was 
still partially red from the effects of my petulance. I sulked 
and sobbed as he fondled and soothed, till I began to brighten. 
Goldsmith seized the propitious moment of returning good 
humor, when he put down the candle and began to conjure. 

lo He placed three hats, which happened to be in the room, and a 
shilling under each. The shillings, he told me, were England, 
France, and Spain. 'Hey presto cockalorum !' cried the 
Doctor, and lo, on uncovering the shillings, which had been 
dispersed each beneath a separate hat, they were all found 

15 congregated under one. I was no pohtician at five years old, 
and therefore might not have wondered at the sudden revo- 
lution which brought England, France, and Spain all under 
one crown ; but as also I was no conjurer, it amazed me be- 
yond measure. . . . From that time, whenever the Doctor 

20 came to visit my father, ' I plucked his gown to share the good 
man's smile;' a game at romps constantly ensued, and we 
were always cordial friends and merry playfellows. Our 
unequal companionship varied somewhat as to sports as I 
grew older ; but it did not last long : my senior playmate died 

25 in his forty-fifth year, when I had attained my eleventh. . . . 
In all the numerous accounts of his virtues and foibles, his 
genius and absurdities, his knowledge of nature and ignorance 
of the world, his 'compassion for another's woe' was always 
predominant ; and my trivial story of his humoring a f roward 

30 child weighs but as a feather in the recorded scale of his 
benevolence." 

Think of him reckless, thriftless, vain, if you like — but 
merciful, gentle, generous, full of love and pity. He passes 
out of our life, and goes to render his account beyond it. 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 245 

Think of the poor pensioners weeping at his grave ; think of 
the noble spirits that admired and deplored him ; think of the 
righteous pen that wrote his epitaph — and of the wonderful 
and unanimous response of affection with which the world 
has paid back the love he gave it. His humor delighting us 5 
still : his song fresh and beautiful as when first he charmed 
with it : his words in all our mouths : his very weaknesses 
beloved and familiar — his benevolent spirit seems still to 
smile upon us ; to do gentle kindnesses : to succor with sweet 
charity : to soothe, caress, and forgive : to plead with the 10 
fortunate for the unhappy and the poor. 

His name is the last in the list of those men of humor who 
have formed the themes of the discourses which you have 
heard so kindly. 

Long before I had ever hoped for such an audience, or 15 
dreamed of the possibility of the good fortune which has 
brought me so many friends, I was at issue with some of my 
literary brethren upon a point — which they held from tradi- 
tion I think rather than experience — that our profession 
was neglected in this country ; and that men of letters were 20 
ill received and held in slight esteem. It would hardly be 
grateful of me now to alter my old opinion that we do meet 
with good- will and kindness, with generous helping hands in the 
time of our necessity, with cordial and friendly recognition. 
What claim had any one of these of whom I have been speak- 25 
ing, but genius ? What return of gratitude, fame, affection, 
did it not bring to all ? 

What punishment befell those who were unfortunate among 
them, but that which follows reckless habits and careless 
lives? For these faults a wit must suffer like the dullest 30 
prodigal that ever ran in debt. He must pay the tailor ifj^he 
wears the coat ; his children must go in rags if he spends his 
money at the tavern ; he can't come to London and be made 



246 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

Lord Chancellor if he stops on the road and gambles away his 
last shilling at Dublin. And he must pay the social penalty 
of these follies too, and expect that the world will shun the 
man of bad habits, that women will avoid the man of loose 

5 life, that prudent folks will close their doors as a precaution, 
and before a demand should be made on their pockets by the 
needy prodigal. With what difficulty had any one of these 
men to contend, save that eternal and mxcchanical one of 
want of means and lack of capital, and of which thousands 

10 of young lawyers, young doctors, young soldiers and sailors, 
of inventors, manufacturers, shopkeepers, have to complain ? 
Hearts as brave and resolute as ever beat in the breast of any 
wit or poet, sicken and break daily in the vain endeavor and 
unavailing struggle against life's difficulty. Don't we see 

15 daily ruined inventors, gray-haired midshipmen, balked 
heroes, blighted curates, barristers pining a hungry life out in 
chambers, the attorneys never mounting to their garrets, 
whilst scores of them are rapping at the door of the success- 
ful quack below ? If these suffer, who is the author, that he 

20 should be exempt ? Let us bear our ills with the same con- 
stancy with which others endure them, accept our manly part 
in life, hold our own, and ask no more. I can conceive of 
no kings or laws causing or curing Goldsmith's improvidence, 
or Fielding's fatal love of pleasure, or Dick Steele's mania for 

25 running races with the constable. You never can outrun 
that sure-footed officer — not by any swiftness or by dodges 
devised by any genius, however great ; and he carries off the 
Tatler to the spunging house, or taps the Citizen of the 
World on the shoulder as he would any other mortal. 

30 Does society look down on a man because he is an author ? 
I suppose if people want a buffoon they tolerate him only in 
so far as he is amusing ; it can hardly be expected that they 
should respect him as an equal. Is there to be a guard of 
honor provided for the author of the last new novel or poem ? 



STERNE AND GOLDSMITH 247 

how long is he to reign, and keep other potentates out of 
possession ? He retires, grumbles, and prints a lamentation 
that Hterature is despised. If Captain A. is left out of Lady 
B.'s parties, he does not state that the army is despised: 
if Lord C. no longer askes Counselor D. to dinner, Counselors 
D. does not announce that the bar is insulted. He is not 
fair to society if he enters it with this suspicion hankering 
about him ; if he is doubtful about his reception, how hold 
up his head honestly, and look frankly in the face that world 
about which he is full of suspicion ? Is he place-hunting, and 10 
thinking in his mind that he ought to be made an Ambassador 
like Prior, or a Secretary of State like Addison ? his pretense 
of equality falls to the ground at once; he is scheming for a 
patron, not shaking the hand of a friend, when he meets the 
world. Treat such a man as he deserves ; laugh at his buf- 15 
foonery, and give him a dinner and a honjour; laugh at his 
self-sufi5ciency and absurd assumptions of superiority, and 
his equally ludicrous airs of martyrdom : laugh at his flattery 
and his scheming, and buy it, if it's worth the having. Let 
the wag have his dinner and the hireling his pay, if you want 20 
him, and make a profound bow to the grand homme incompris, 
and the boisterous martyr, and show him the door. The 
great world, the great aggregate experience, has its good sense, 
as it has its good humor. It detects a pretender, as it trusts a 
loyal heart. It is kind in the main : how should it be other- 25 
wise than kind, when it is so wise and clear-headed ? To any 
literary man who says, "It despises my profession," I say, 
with all my might — no, no, no. It may pass over your indi- 
vidual case — how many a brave fellow has failed in the race 
and perished unknown in the struggle ! — but it treats you as 30 
you merit in the main. If you serve it, it is not unthankful ; 
if you please it, it is pleased ; if you cringe to it, it detects you, 
and scorns you if you are mean ; it returns your cheerfulness 
with its good humor; it deals not ungenerously with your 



248 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

weaknesses ; it recognizes most kindly your merits ; it gives 
you a fair place and fair play. To any one of those men of 
whom we have spoken was it in the main ungrateful ? A 
king might refuse Goldsmith a pension, as a publisher might 
5 keep his masterpiece and the delight of all the world in his 
desk for two years; but it was mistake, and not ill-will. 
Noble and illustrious names of Swift, and Pope, and Addi- 
son ! dear and honored memories of Goldsmith and Fielding ! 
kind friends, teachers, benefactors ! who shall say that our 
10 country, which continues to bring you such an unceasing 
tribute of applause, admiration, love, sympathy, does not do 
honor to the literary calling in the honor which it bestows 
upon you? 



NOTES 

For accounts of Thackeray's life and work the student may consult the 
following : the article by Sir Leslie Stephen in the " Dictionary of Na- 
tional Biography " ; Lady Ritchie's introductions to the Biographical 
Edition ; the "Life" by Merivale and Marzials in the " Great Writers " 
series, 1891 ; the "Life" by Trollope, " English Men of Letters " series, 
1880 ; and the " Life " by Lewis Melville, 1899, in two volumes, well 
reviewed by L. W. Payne, Jr., in the Sewanee Review for October, 1900. 

The most serviceable edition of Thackeray's works for the general 
reader is the Biographical Edition, Harper and Brothers, 1903. 

1 18 James Hannay (1827-1873) : Thackeray before sailing for 
America turned over the lectures on the humorists to Hannay to be 
annotated and gotten into shape for publication. 

Hannay had been in the navy for some years, but had taken up liter- 
ature as a profession. He was the author of many magazine articles, 
and the editor of Pasquin. and later of The Puppet Show, both 
comic papers. He utilized his naval experiences in " Sketches in Ultra- 
marine." In 1854 he published a book of lectures on " Satire and 
Satirists." He was appointed consul at Brest, but exchanged this post 
for that of Barcelona, where he died suddenly, January 9, 1873. For 
fuller information the student may see the article by his son in the 
" Dictionary of National Biography." 

SWIFT 

The special student of Swift may read the "Life" by Henry Craik 
(1882), the " Life " by John Forster (1875), and Sir Leslie Stephen's 
" Life " in the " English Men of Letters " series. The first is perhaps 
the best, the second interesting for many of the details given, the third 
useful for its brevity, though rather barren. 

Thackeray has another portrait in " Henry Esmond," Chapter V, 
Book III, where the picture of Swift is even more unsatisfactory than 
in the " Humorists." 

It is disappointing to know that Thackeray, who, it would seem, 

249 



250 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

found it so easy to forgive Steele his weaknesses and the frailties of his 
very human heart, could not better understand the faults and virtues 
of Swift's strong soul. Swift's nature seems to have been a mixture of 
pride and self-abnegation, an imperious temper and a deep remorse of 
conscience, and behind it all a hungry heart. He hid almost fiercely an 
almost fierce need for love and friends. To confer a favor seemed a 
necessity with him, for he constantly petitioned in some one's behalf ; to 
give and to care for was a daily activity and his charities were numberless. 
Like Dr. Johnson, who misjudged him, he had his charities among old 
women and among the sick and helpless ; and though he ruled them 
squarely and firmly, he relieved and directed them. All this with self- 
reproaches and humiliations in his closet, but outwardly a reserve, a 
silence, even among his closest friends. Too proud to be vain among men, 
as he himself said, he felt the vanity and show of life ; and in his shame 
and rage, lashed himself and others with satire after satire and jest after 
jest. He meant to be candid, real, especially with himself ; though his 
early humiliations and violent prejudices often misled him. Finally, 
much of the current judgment of Swift's character and disposition is 
based on the more copious records of his last diseased and unhappy years. 

1 5 Harlequin : a stock role in the early Italian comedy. Harlequins 
wore motley and played clownish parts. The name is said to have been 
given first to an Italian actor who was patronized by the family of 
Harlay in Paris, and consequently called by his comrades " Harlequino," 
little Harlay. 

2 21 Kilkenny : Congreve and Berkeley also went to this school. 

4 10 Johnson : apropos of *' Gulliver's Travels " Dr. Johnson said, 
" When once you have thought of big men and little men, it is very easy 
to do all the rest." He liked " The Tale of the Tub," there was in it 
such " vigor of mind, such a swarm of thoughts, so much of nature, and 
art, and life." Boswell, ed. Hill, Vol. II, 364-365. 

8 7 Macheath : the highwayman hero of Gay's " Beggar's Opera," 
1728. 

8 14 mitre and crozier : the mitre is a tall cap terminating in two 
peaks ; the crozier is a crook or cross. Both express the oflSce of popes, 
archbishops, and bishops. In a letter to Lord Halifax, Swift wrote : 
" Pray my lord, desire Dr. Smith to die about the fall of the leaf, for 
he has a prebend of Westminster which will make me your neighbor, and 
a sinecure in the country, both in the Queen's gift . . . the late king 
promised me a prebend of Westminster, when I petitioned him in pur- 
suance of a recommendation I had from Sir William Temple." Forster, 
Vol. I, p. 259. 



NOTES 251 

9 36 Guiscard : Guiscard made an attempt to kill Harley, the head of 
the Tory ministry, March 8, 1711. He succeeded only in wounding him, 
and was himself wounded by St. John (Bolingbroke) and Lord Paulet. 
He died in prison shortly after. 

10 2 condottieri : soldiers of fortune. 

10 2 The Boyne : the battle of the Boyne was fought July i, 1690, 
on the River Boyne in eastern Ireland. The forces of James II, the 
deposed Stuart, were here defeated by William, who, together with his 
wife, the Princess Mary, had supplanted him on the English throne in 
1688. See Cheney's " Short History of England," p. 516. 

10 8 South Sea Bubble : the South Sea Company, planned to extin- 
guish the national debt, was granted a monopoly of the South Sea trade. 
Speculation over the stock went wild, and when the crash came, thou- 
sands of people were ruined. (See Cheney's " Short History of England," 
p. 544.) Thackeray here compares the scramble for political favors in 
Swift's day to the rage for stocks in the South Sea Bubble. 

11 1 coup : a blow, a move, a trick. 

11 6 Copenhagen : When the Enghsh learned that Napoleon planned 
to seize the Danish fleet, hitherto neutral, they demanded that the fleet 
be turned over to them for keeping till a suitable time for returning it. 
Upon the Danes' refusal to give up the fleet, the Enghsh took Copen- 
hagen by bombardment and subsequently refused to keep their promise 
of returning the fleet to its owners, on the ground that force had been 
necessary to acquire it. This conduct was condemned by many persons 
at the time (1807), and is here used humorously by Thackeray as an 
example of a tardy pretext. 

12 39 Mantua vse miserae nimium vicina Cremonae ! Mantua alas 
too near the wretched Cremona ! Virgil, Eclogue IX, 1. 28. Clever pun- 
ning. 

13 1 the poetical power : in Swift's verse the general style of the 
century is against him, and tends to make the outer form of his poetry 
conventional and cold. Under the form there burns real feeling and 
pathos, rather felt than expressed in the verse itself. 

13 9 Sir William Temple (1628-1699) : statesman and diplomat; 
author of numerous essays and dissertations on political and literary 
subjects. Swift assisted him in the writing of his memoirs. 

13 10 Bang William taught him to cut asparagus in the Dutch fashion : 
King William " was so far gracious as to offer to make Swift a captain of 
horse, and instruct him in the Dutch method of eating asparagus. By 
this last phrase hangs an anecdote of later days. Faulkner, the Dublin 
printer, was dining with Swift, and on asking for a second supply of 



252 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

asparagus, was told by the Dean to finish what he had on his plate. 
' What, sir, eat my stalks? ' ' Aye, sir, King William always ate his 
stalks.' " The " Life " by Sir Leslie Stephen, p. 19. 

14 3 ambrosial wig : the first word signifies the power to confer im- 
mortality. It was the conventional epithet for the rich hair of the gods. 
The two ideas remembered help to point the whimsical cleverness of 
Thackeray's present use of the word. 

14 34 Molinists : the followers of the Jesuit Luis Molina, 1 535-1 600. 
The leading doctrine of Molinism concerns the relation of divine grace 
to man's will. The doctrine is that predestination is " consequent on 
God's foreknowledge of the free determination of man's will ; " and that 
it does not therefore effect the freedom of the particular action. Over 
this doctrine waged a great controversy. All Jesuits have not yet 
accepted it. See the " International Encyclopedia." 

15 13 Mild Dorothea, peaceful, etc. : from Swift's lines "Occasioned 
by Sir William Temple's Late Illness and Recovery," lines 41-42. Doro- 
thea was Sir William Temple's wife ; Dorinda stands for his sister, 
Lady GiflEord, who was his constant companion. 

15 16 " Those who would grief describe, might come and trace " : 
Hnes 51-52 of the same poem on Temple's illness. The original reads : 
" You that would grief describe, come here and trace." Thackeray 
then omits six lines. " To see her weep," should be " Thus when 
Dorinda wept." 

16 12 moxa : " a soft downy substance prepared in China and Japan 
from the leaves of the Artemisia moxa and used as a cautery." Century 
Dictionary. 

17 7 Teague : a gawky Irish lad, famous for his blunders. 
17 21 plates-bandes : platbands, borders of flowers. 

17 22 Epicurus : a Greek philosopher, 341-270 B.C. Diogenes Laertius, 
the name ascribed to the supposed author of a collection of biographical 
notes on the famous philosophers, written in the reigns of Septimus 
Severus and Caracalla. Semiramis was one of the mythical founders 
of the z\ssyrian empire, perhaps originally a goddess. Dante mentions 
her in Hell, " ell' e Semiramis, di cui si legge." " Inferno," V, 1. 58. 

17 23 the gardens of the Hesperides : the fabled gardens of the west, 
where the golden apples were tended by the daughters of Hesperus. 

17 23 Maecenas : 73 or 63-8 B.C. Prime minister under Augustus, 
and the foremost patron of letters in the Augustan age. Virgil and 
Horace especially benefited by his favor. Strabo, 63-21 B.C. about. 
A celebrated geographer. 

17 27 Epicurean : Epicurus (see above) taught that pleasure is the 



NOTES 253 

end of rational action, and that perfect pleasure consists in freedom from 
disturbance. Epicureanism, though unjustly, came to stand for the 
voluptuous life of the senses and the pleasures of the flesh. Sir William 
Temple was Epicurean in his love for gardens and retirement and in his 
naturalistic view of the world. 

17 28 Pythagorean : Pythagoras was a Greek philosopher of the 
sixth century B.C. The data and the testimony as to what his teachings 
were differ widely, and there is no exact agreement on the matter. The 
transmigration of souls and the theory of numbers are two doctrines 
ascribed to him. 

19 4 Bishop Kennet (1660-1728) : Bishop of Peterborough; known 
as a philologist, antiquarian, topographer, and historian. 

20 1 Thorold (1606-1664) : a Jesuit whose real name was Thomas 
Carwell. He wrote against Archbishop Laud. 

20 4 F. Gwynne: (1648-1734) : a politician, M. P. from Cardiff, Chip- 
penham, and other places, Irish Secretary, etc. He wrote a diary of 
James II's expedition to the West. 

20 (Note 3) Dr. Fiddes, Richard (167 1- 1725) : divine, befriended by 
Swift. He attacks Mandeville's " Fable of the Bees." See p. 65, Note 7, 
in " A General Treatise on Morahty." 

21 3 a potato and a friendly word : not bad as fancy. The preference 
of Goldsmith's potato and friendly word, however, would depend on one's 
hunger and amount of what Swift would have called " alarmed pride, 
vanity, or conceit." 

21 8 no Irishman ever : apropos of the Irish Thackeray once said that 
all he had ever loved best in this world was Irish, referring to his 
wife, 

21 13 with such secrecy that the guests . . . : may it not be the case 
that Thackeray's interpretation here is unhappy ? The secrecy may very 
well have been a part of Swift's intense reserve. 

21 18 "Tale of a Tub" : published anonymously in 1704, a satire on 
religious controversies and enthusiasms. It is regarded by many critics 
as one of the great books in English prose. 

22 2 Bolingbroke : Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke, 1678-1751, 
well known by his contemporaries as a statesman and an orator, and as a 
writer on political, philosophical, and literary subjects. Pope admired 
him greatly and made, in the " Essay on Man," poetical use of his philo- 
sophical writings. 

22 9 John Gay (1685-1732) : poet and dramatist, the "Fables" and 
" The Beggar's Opera " being, perhaps, the best known of his works, 

23 12 "Peccavi" : I am a sinner. 



254 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

23 15 hiccuped : observe this among many instances of Thackeray's 
clever use of the concrete verb. 

25 6 Abudah : a wealthy merchant of Bagdad, in the " Tales of the 
Genii," by H. R. Ridley. Abudah is driven by a hag to seek the talis- 
man of Oromanes. He finds the talisman at last : to fear God and keep 
his commandments. Whereupon the hag, who is Conscience, leaves him. 
See Brewer's " The Reader's Handbook." 

25 16 " saeva indignatio " : Swift's tombstone bore the following inscrip- 
tion, written by himself : — 

Hie depositum est corpus 

JONATHAN SWIFT, S. T. P. 
Hujus Ecclesiae Cathedralis 

Decani 
Ubi saeva indignatio 
Ulterius cor Ictcerare nequit 

Abi viator 
Et imitare, si poteris, 
Strenuum pro virili libertatis vindicem 

Obiit anno (1745) 

Mensis (Octobris) die (19) 

^tatis anno (78). 

The lines may be translated : — 

Here lies the body of Jonathan Swift, | S. T. P., dean of this cathedral 
church I where bitter indignation | no more may rend his heart, j Go 
traveler | And imitate, if you can, this stanch defender, in so far as he 
was able, of liberty. | He died in the year 1745, the igth day of October, 
in the 78th year of his age. 

25 24 Drapier's Letters : in 1724 a patent was granted to William 
Wood, a proprietor of extensive iron works, to issue 180,000 pounds' worth 
of halfpence and farthings, in debased currency, for use in Ireland. Swift 
wrote the " Drapier's Letters " to defeat the measure, and in the end 
succeeded. He became the most influential and popular man in Ireland. 

25 27 Lilliputian island: the island in " GulHver's Travels" (1727) 
where the people are dwarfs ; the purpose of the satire being to suggest 
by their quarrels and wars, over which end of an egg to break and similar 
questions, the pettiness of mankind. Many of Swift's coined names and 
places have passed into synonyms for everyday experiences and ideas, 

26 15 "Modest Proposal "(1729): " Written for Preventing the Children 
of Poor People in Ireland from being a Burden to their Parents or Coun- 
try." In this pamphlet Swift proposed that children be made to serve 



NOTES 255 

as articles of food. Thackeray's interpretation seems rather superficial 
and foolish. Apart from the fact that Swift had almost a weakness for 
children — which answers Thackeray's point — the thing to be observed 
here is that -his love for humanity is what prompts the writing of the 
satire. He writes gravely his satirical proposal and sets methodically 
about his plan for carrying it out ; and meantime the passion in his heart 
is that of shame for the oppression of the poor, for the " corruptions and 
villanies of men in power," and the wretchedness of the Irish masses. 
No man ever felt for the needy more than did Swift. " I never," said his 
friend Delany, " saw poor so carefully and conscientiously attended to in 
my life as those of his cathedral " (Quoted in the " Life " by Sir Leslie 
Stephen, p. 190). 

27 10 Almanach des Gourmands : between 1803-1812 was published a 
book of that title (" Grimod de la Regniere, Paris ") in eight volumes. 
It is very probable, however, that Thackeray is here inventing the phrase. 
Professor Regel cites in this connection Thackeray's " Memorials of 
Gormandizing " in Frazer's. 

27 10 On nait rotisseur : one is born a roaster ; roasters are born, not 
made. The slang is, of course, still in use. 

28 14 Mr. Macaulay has quoted : in the Essay on Addison : — 

" Jamque acies inter medias sese arduus infert 
Pygmeadum ductor, qui, majestate verendus, 
Incessu gravis, reliquos supereminet omnes 
Mole gigantea, mediamque exsurgit in ulnam." 

28 17 the mast of some great ammiral : Milton's " Paradise Lost," I, 
294-295. 

32 11 Delany: Patrick (1685-1768), divine; called by Swift "the 
most eminent preacher we have." He published in 1754 a defense of 
Swift against Lord Orrery, whose edition of the epistles of Phalaris had 
led to the famous controversy with Bentley, and, in 1697, to the writing . 
of Swift's " Battle of the Books." 

32 12 Archbishop King (1650-1729) : of Dublin. His career is de- 
scribed in the " Dictionary of National Biography." 

34 26 ChampoUion : Jean Francois, 1790-1832, a great student of 
Oriental languages. From the Rosetta Stone he obtained the key to the 
hieroglyphics of Egypt. He was later professor of Egyptian Antiquities 
in the College of France. 

37 1 Harley : Robert Harley, 1 661-17 24, created Earl of Oxford. He 
was Speaker of the House of Commons, Tory Prime Minister during the 



256 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

closing years of Queen Anne's reign, a patron of letters, and a great 
collector of books. 

37 1 Peterborough : Henry Mordaunt, 1658-1735, Earl of Peterborough, 
admiral, general, and diplomat, a friend of Gay, Swift, and Pope. 

39 12 Ariadne : in the Greek story, when Theseus deserted Ariadne, 
she waited on the shore and mourned for him in vain. 

" tuetur 
indomitos in corde gerens Ariadna furores, 
necdum etiam sese quae visit visere credit." 

See Catullus' " Marriage of Peleus and Thetis," 1. 51. The passage 
is very beautiful and worth looking up. 

41 25 Sheridan: Thomas Sheridan, 1687-1738, was the master of 
a private school, and the grandfather of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, 
the author of " The Rivals," etc. Swift made him promise that 
if he saw a fault growing on him he would tell him so. When he 
reminded Swift of a fault, Swift resented it, and a coolness sprang up. 
Swift did Sheridan many kind turns nevertheless. 

41 25 he slunk away . . . from Pope : this is inexact. Pope and 
Swift, though they were separated, remained friends. In one of his 
letters. Swift mentions the fact that Pope's ill health hangs on his spirits. 

41 (Note 1) Hayward : Abraham Hayward (1801-1884). : Essayist, au- 
thor, translator of Goethe's " Faust." Famous in his day for his reviews 
and friends. He cultivated relationships with prominent people, and 
left a voluminous correspondence. 

41 (Note 2) M. Swift est Rabelais : "Mr. Swift is Rabelais in his soberer 
mood and living in good company. He has not, it is true, the gayety 
of the first, but he has all the finesse, the reason, the choiceness, the good 
taste which are lacking in our good cure of Meudon. His verses are of a 
singular flavor, and almost inimitable ; good pleasantry is his portion 
in verse and in prose ; but to understand him well one must make a little 
journey into his country." 

CONGREVE 

The portrait of Congreve, though considerably accentuated to make it 
an effective lecture, is probably true to life in the main. It might be 
urged that Thackeray does not sufficiently take into account the fact 
that Congreve should be judged, to some extent at least, by the aims of 
his type of art, and that within that type Congreve is a good artist. 

Bibliography. The " Life " by Edmund Gosse, " Great Writers " 
series, 1888. 



NOTES 



257 



43 1 the Reform Bill in 1832 disfranchised 41 boroughs and took away- 
one member each from thirty others ; transferring thereby the power to 
the middle classes in the towns. This meant the abolition of the old 
order by which men might be sent up to Parliament from places that 
had no inhabitants or importance, but had notwithstanding the right to 
members. " Cornwall was notorious for its rotten boroughs, many of 
which were already rotten when they were enfranchised. The names 
of several of these boroughs have become synonymous for electoral 
rottenness." Poritt, " The Unreformed House of Commons," Vol. I, 
p. 91. 

4i.3 12 Pitt, William (i 708-1778) : first earl of Chatham. "As an 
orator he must be ranked with the greatest of ancient or modern times ; 
as a statesman and as a minister he possessed ability of a high order." 
" Dictionary of National Biography." 

43 12 Mirabeau, Comte de (i 749-1 791) : the greatest orator of the 
French Revolution. 

43 18 Old Sarum had no inhabitants at all. 

44 2 Prince Eugene (1663-1736) : an expatriated Frenchman who be- 
came famous as an Austrian general. By the time he was twenty he had 
already shown great military talent. Louis XIV made him large offers 
to return to France, but in vain. He commanded the German Imperial 
army and shared with Marlborough the victory of Blenheim. He is 
ranked as one of the world's great military leaders. 

44 7 Busby's : Richard Busby (1606-1695), headmaster of Westmin- 
ster School. He was a stanch Royalist and favored in his later years 
by Charles II. Busby was famous as a severe pedagogue, a wielder of 
the rod. He had many eminent pupils, Dryden, Locke, Atterbury, nu- 
merous bishops, and others. See " Dictionary of National Biography." 

44 10 Tickell, Thomas (1686-1740) : a minor poet, best known to-day 
for his fine memorial poem on Addison. For the part he played in the 
celebrated estrangement of Pope and Addison, see the " Dictionary of 
National Biography." 

44 10 Dennis, John (1657-1734) : the best critic of his day and the 
author of numerous dramas. Pope satirized his bombastic style, and 
Dennis replied in his " Reflections Critical and Satirical." He was noted 
for his sharp temper and his quarrels. 

45 6 Accourez, etc. : "hasten, chaste nymphs of Permessus. The trees 
are rejoiced with the sounds that spring from my lyre ; mark well its 
cadence ; and you, winds, be still ! I shall speak of Louis ! " 

Thackeray was proud of his French accent, and in the lectures took 
several occasions to make use of it. 



258 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

45 7 Boileau (1636-1711) : a famous French poet and critic whose 
critical theories were very influential throughout the classical period 
of French literature. 

45 28 Montague, Charles Montagu (1661-1715) : first earl of Halifax, 
one of the founders of the Bank of England, and an influential Whig 
statesman. He was noted as a patron of letters. 

46 6 Ah, I'heureux temps, etc. : ' how happy were the times of these 
fables ! ' 

48 14 Grub Street Timon : John Dennis is compared to the Athenian 
Timon, who lived in the time of the Peloponnesian War. The ingratitude 
of his friends led him to become a hermit. See Shakespeare's play on the 
subject. 

48 20 Bracegirdle, Anne (1660-1748) : an actress who played in Con- 
greve's "Love for Love," and " The Mourning Bride," and many Shake- 
spearean roles. She is mentioned in " Henry Esmond," Book II, 
Chap. V. 

48 (Note 2) Thos. Davies (1712 ?-i785) : after having acted at Drury 
Lane, became a bookseller and publisher, and later set himself up as 
patron and critic. He it was who arranged the dinner for Boswell and 
Johnson to meet. He engaged Goldsmith to write "The History of 
Rome," " History of England," and other works. 

49 11 Nell Gwynn (1650-1687): an actress popular in comic parts, 
in prologues and epilogues. She was a mistress of Charles II. 

49 14 Jeremy Collier (1650-1726) : nonjuror, lecturer, preacher, essay- 
ist. He was publicly outlawed but went unharmed ; and was later or- 
dained bishop of the nonjuring congregation. He wrote in 1698 his 
" Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage," 
which gave rise to an important controversy. 

50 8 Lais : a Corinthian courtesan, living in the latter part of the 
second century B.C. 

51 9 Sallust's house : for details, see Mau's " Pompeii," translated by 
Kelsey, p. 283. 

51 32 cavalier seul : gentlemen to the front. 

52 23 treillage : a trellis or arbor. 

52 27 pas : step. 

53 16 Segreto per esser felice : the secret of happiness. 

53 17 Falernian : one of the most famous of the classic wines, often 
referred to in the Latin lyrists. 

53 30 Mirabel : a gallant in Congreve's " Way of the World," in love 
with Mrs. Millamant. 

53 30 Belmour : the gallant who loves the affected Belinda in Con- 
greve's " Old Bachelor." 



NOTES 259 

53 31 Scapin : a rascally clown from the old Italian comedy, here 
intended for Scapin in Moliere's " Les Fourberies de Scapin." 

53 32 Frontin :' a favorite comic character of the end of the seventeenth 
century ; a descendant of Scapin and his kind. Frontin, rascally, clever, 
occurs in many comedies of the period. He is now almost forgotten. 

54 15 Millamant and Lady Millamant, characters in Congreve's "Way 
of the World." Lady Millamant has the gay and whimsical theory that 
" cruelty is a proof of power." 

54 17 Doricourt : in Mrs. Cowley's " The Belle's Stratagem." 

58 6 Grammont's French dandies : Philibert, Comte de Grammont, 
(1621-1707). He was a courtier of the court of Louis XIV, and was 
famous for his intrigues and accomplishments. He is most interesting 
to us on account of his " Memoirs," written or dictated when he was 
eighty and edited by his brother-in-law, Anthony Hamilton. He was 
at one time in exile and lived at the court of Charles II ; and his 
" Memoirs " furnish one of the most useful records of that day. 

58 7 Lerida : during the Thirty Years' War Lerida was besieged ofif 
and on between 1643 and 1647. There were two Grammonts at the 
siege. For a clever account the student may read the beginning of 
Chap. VIII in the Memoirs of Count Grammont (Bohn), where the siege 
is said to have been undertaken to the playing of fiddles. 

58 8 Cease, cease to ask her name : the second stanza from the poem 
" Written at Tunbridge Wells, on Miss Temple, afterwards Lady of Sir 
Thomas Lyttelton." 

60 28 Southerne : Thomas Southerne (i 660-1 746), a dramatist, the 
author of " Orinooko " and other plays. 

61 13 Celui de tous les Anglais, etc. : the man who of all the English 
has carried farthest the glory of the comic theater is the late Mr. Con- 
greve. He wrote only a few pieces, but all are excellent in their kind. 
. . . You see there everywhere the language of honest men with the 
actions of rascals ; which proves that he knew his world well, and that 
he lived in what we call good society. 



ADDISON 

Bibliography. The " Life of Addison," by W. J. Courthope, " English 
Men of Letters " series, 1884. " Life " by Lucy Aikin,- 1843. Macau- 
lay's essay is pleasant reading. 

62 34 Shadwell, Thomas (1640-1692) : poet-laureate. Dryden ridi- 
cules him in " MacFlecknoe " and elsewhere. 



26o ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

62 35 Higgons, Bevil (1670-1735) : a poet and playwright all but for- 
gotten to-day, 

63 10 Thackeray here makes a hero out of Addison, bringing out all 
his excellent traits and heightening them. The portrait is idealized, and 
obviously misleading in some respects, as for instance his picture of 
Addison as a grand and lonely dweller on the heights. It is the keynote 
to all Addison's circle of wits that they were at home in this world and 
contented with the good the gods provide. 

64 17 Goethe or Scott : for their treatment of beginners, one might 
look up the letter in Lockhart's " Life of Scott," Vol. Ill, p. 107 ; and 
page 399 in G. H. Lewes' abridged " Life of Goethe." In Merivale and 
Marzials' " Life of Thackeray," see the letter to Aytoun (p. 137). " Do 
you remember how complimentary Scott and Goethe were? " 

64 28 Pinkethman, William (fi. 1725) : an actor who rose by pleasing 
the groundlings. He attained finally to some repute. He is discussed 
in Spectator, No. 370. 

64 29 Doggett, Thomas (d. 1721) : an actor. He acted in Congreve's 
" Love for Love " and other plays. His style was praised as " dignified." 
He is mentioned in the Spectator, No. 502. 

64 30 Don Saltero : a barber and keeper of a coffee-house in Cheyne 
Walk, Chelsea. He played the fiddle in a distressing fashion, related in 
the Tatler, No. 34. 

65 (Note 5) Lady Wortley Montagu (1689-1762) : author of the famous 
"Letters." She was from time to time the friend of many famous per- 
sons, among them Pope. She introduced from Turkey the practice of 
inoculation for smallpox. 

65 (Note 7) Mandeville : Bernard Mandeville (1670-1735). Known for 
his wit and advocacy of dram drinking. His " Fable of the Bees," which 
maintained the essential vileness of human nature, was widely contested. 
Seethe " Dictionary of National Biography." Johnson naturally does 
not consider him a man to judge Addison wisely. 

65 (Note 8) Old Jacob Tonson (1656-1736): publisher. He purchased 
the copyright of " Paradise Lost," and published much of the work of 
Dryden, Addison, Pope, and others. 

66 11 LysBus : care-dispeller. A Greek name applied to Dionysos, 
but meaning here the wine, as Gray says Ceres' golden reign for the wheat. 

68 2 Mr. Macaulay is bound to own : " He found that wine broke the . 
spell which lay on his fine intellect, and was therefore too easily seduced 
into convivial excess." Essay on Addison. 

68 11 Bathurst, Ralph (i 620-1 704) : the president of Trinity College and 
Vice-Chancellor of the university. He was a writer of essays and verse. 



NOTES 261 

70 1 Statius (61-96 A.D.) : the chief of the heroic poets of the Silver 
Age. His greatest work was the " Thebaid." 

70 8 Boyle, Lord Carleton (d. 1725) : chancellor of the exchequer, 
lord treasurer of Ireland, principal secretary of state. For another ac- 
count of this visit, see " Henry Esmond," Book II, Chap. XL 

~ 70 11 Godolphin, Sidney (1645-1712) : a lord of the treasury in 1679, 
one of the last adherents of James II, but later Marlborough's confidential 
ally (i 702-1 710) and a prime minister of no great merit save as a financier. 

71 5 Mr. Locke : the philosopher, John Locke, born, 1632, died, 1704. 

71 7 angel visits: 

" The good he scorned. 

Stalked off reluctant like an ill-us'd ghost, 
Not to return ; — or if it did, its visits, 
Like those of angels, short and far between." 

— " The Grave," Blair, 11. 589-592. 

72 13 Swift has left a description : " I was this morning at ten at the 
rehearsal of Mr. Addison's play, called " Cato," which is to be acted on 
Friday. There were not half a score of us to see it. We stood on the 
stage, and it was foolish enough to see the actors prompted every mo- 
ment, and the poet directing them, and the drab that acts Cato's 
daughter (Mrs. Oldfield) out in the midst of a passionate part, and 
then calHng out, ' What's next ? ' " 

No description by Swift of the first night of " Cato " has been found. 
Pope left a record of it in his letters to Trumbull, April 30, 17 13. 

73 2 Divus : a god. 

75 1 a literary Jeffreys (1648-1689) : George, first Baron Jeffreys and 
lord chief justice under Charles II and James 11. Jeffreys is said to have 
displayed great ability in civil cases, but as a criminal judge he be- 
came widely known for his brutality. Swift is here called a literary 
Jeffreys. 

76 1 Breaking Priscian's head : Priscian was a famous grammarian, 
500 A.D. To violate the rules of grammar was to break Priscian's head. 
Diminuere Prisciani caput. (Brewer's " Dictionary of Phrase and 
Fable.") 

79 13 a propos de bottes sans motif : speaking of casks — or boots — 
as we say " speaking of the weather " when we change the subject 
suddenly. 

80 1 Madam Doll Tearsheet : a low woman in Shakespeare's " Henry 
TV," Part II, Act II, sc. 4. 

81 7 It seems to me : note the beautiful harmony of the style of this 
paragraph with the character that is the subject of it. 



262 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 



STEELE 

In this essay Thackeray has, as did Macaulay, overaccented Steele's 
most striking traits ; and, while the result is effective as a sketch, rich in 
contrasts and whimsicalities, and full of life, it is at Steele's cost, and 
unfair to him as a man. It tends to demand of the reader more leniency 
than admiration. 

The worst of Steele's faults seem to have been on the surface ; little 
vanities and inconsistencies like those of Goldsmith, and a variable 
weakness for drink. It seems, however, that it was not that he drank 
more than the other wits of his day, but that he was more easily over- 
thrown. Steele's general intentions were more admirable than were those 
of most of his contemporaries. He was honest in his politics ; devoted and 
loyal to his friends and family ; and, though he was like his friends in' 
that he fell from time to time, he differed from them, perhaps, in that his 
aspirations were serious and intense. Steele was a warm man in a cold 
age. " Had Swift only gathered from his early friendship with Steele 
a little sweetness," says Professor Carpenter, " had Pope gained from 
him a little manliness, and Addison himself more warmth of affection 
the literature of the age would have shown the brighter." 

Finally we should remember that a large part of the charges against 
Steele come from the opponents that his stanch and outspoken politics 
aroused. 

Bibliography. The best biography is by George A. Aitken, 1889. 
The late Professor G. R. Carpenter has a brief and excellent discussion 
in his " Selections from Steele " in the Athenaeum Press series. There 
is also a delightful life by Mr. Austin Dobson in the " English 
Worthies " series. 

82 1 What do we look for in studying the history : observe the con- 
nection between the opening remarks of this lecture and the method of 
treatment in the " Humorists." 

82 20 Swift's history of the times : Swift's " History of the Last Four 
Years of Queen Anne " appeared posthumously. It is, as might be 
expected, violently prejudiced. 

82 24 Walpole, Robert (i 676-1 745) : the most important English 
political leader during the first half of the eighteenth century, first earl 
of Orford, and Whig prime minister. See the " Dictionary of National 
Biography." 

82 27 Marlborough's life by a copious archdeacon : William Coxe 
(1747-1828), archdeacon of Wilton, wrote, among other memoirs, those of 
Marlborough, in 3 volumes, 181 8-18 19. 



NOTES 263 

83 10 the real Churchill : the family name is used as carrying out the 
point of real. 

83 13 Mnemosyne : the goddess of memory, daughter of Heaven and 
Earth, and by Zeus the mother of the Muses. 

83 18 Turpin, Richard : • the subject of sensational romances, was 
caught and hanged for horse stealing, at York, in 1739. 

83 22 take the side of the Dons : Dons is used in British university 
slang for tutors or college ofl&cials in general, and suggests decorum and 
gravity, respectability and rule. 

84 14 Will Wimble : " Will Wimble is the younger brother to a baronet 
and descended of the ancient family of the Wimbles. He is now between 
forty and fifty, but, being bred to no business and born to no estate, 
he generally lives with his elder brother as superintendent of his game. 

, . . . He is extremely well versed in all the little handicrafts of an idle 
man." Spectator Papers, No. 108. 

84 31 Ramillies and Malplaquet : the battle of Ramillies at the vil- 
lage of that name in the province of Brabant, Belgium, May 23, 1706. 
The allies under the Duke of Marlborough defeated the French and 
Bavarian forces under Villerai. Malplaquet, in the Department of 
Nord, France, near the Belgian frontier, where, on Sept. 11, 1705, the 
English, Dutch, and Austrian forces defeated the French. 

85 21 coram latronibus : in company with thieves. 

86 23 Lord Mohun, Charles (1675-1712) : was celebrated as a duellist 
and a fast liver generally. He appears in Thackeray's " Henry Esmond" 
(Chaps. XII, XIII, and XIV, Book I, and V in Book III), where 
this tavern scene is done with great brevity and power. 

89 25 Miss Porter, Jane (i 776-1850) : the author of " Thaddeus of 
Warsaw " and " The Scottish Chiefs." — Anne of Swansea : Anne 
Hatton, a sister of Mrs. Siddons. She published eleven novels during the 
years 181 5-183 1. . The title of one of her stories is a sample of all — 
" Cesario Rosalba, or, the Oath of Vengeance," 1819. Phelps, p. 312. 
Note that she followed Scott instead of preceding. 

89 26 Mrs. Radcliffe, Ann (i 764-1823) : founded the Gothic School 
of romances, stories that abounded in the use of terror and the seemingly 
supernatural which turns out to be easily explained on rational grounds. 
This school has a connection through Charles Brockden Brown with 
Poe and Hawthorne. See Trent's " History of American Literature," 
p. 61. Thackeray here uses all three of the novelists to typify the sen- 
timental romance as opposed to Scott's brevity and sanity. 

89 30 Mrs. Manley (Mary de la Riviere) (1663-1724) : author of 
" The New Atalantis," was notorious for her scandalous writings and for 



264 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

her life. She was at one time arrested for slander but escaped punish- 
ment. 

89 31 Tom Durfey (Thomas D'Urfey) (1653-1723) : was a poet and 
dramatist, the author of numerous plays and many songs. His songs 
abound in gay good humor and indecency. 

89 31 Tom Brown (i 663-1 704) : the author of numerous satirical 
writings of a coarse nature. 

89 32 Ned Ward (166 7-1 731) : a humorist who at one time kept 
a tavern in London. He was the author of poems of a burlesque and 
obscene order. 

89 34 ordinaries : places where regular table d'hote meals are served, 
as contrasted with restaurants of a more expensive type where the cook- 
ing is to order. 

91 30 humanities : polite learning in general, literary culture (The 
Century Dictionary). It applies especially to the Renaissance revival 
of learning, the intelligent study and aesthetic appreciation of Latin, 
Greek, and Hebrew that was introduced by Petrarch into Italy and spread 
throughout Europe. 

96 9 Garraway's : a coffee-house in Exchange Alley, now pulled down. 
Here, in 1637, tea is said to have been sold for prices ranging from £16 
to £50 to the pound. Students interested in such matters will find a 
pleasing account of Garraway's in " Clubs and Club Life in London," by 
JohnTimbs (1886). 

106 (Note) Jonson : should be Tonson (noted by Professor Regel). 
See note to p. 65, Note 8. For the original spelling, see the letter in 
Aitken's "Life," Vol. I, p. 204. 

107 18 when, immediately after his marriage, etc : no infidelity 
should be understood here ; whatever his weaknesses beforehand, Steele 
was never accused of infidelity after his marriage. 

109 6 Addison sold the house : Steele, it is said, borrowed £100 
(some put it at £1000) of Addison, giving bond and judgment for the re- 
payment of the money at the end of twelve months. "On the forfeiture 
of the bond Addison's attorney proceeded to execution, the house and 
furniture being sold, and the surplus sent to Steele with a * genteel ' 
letter, stating the friendly reasons of this extraordinary proceeding ; viz. 
to awaken him if possible from a lethargy that must end in his inevitable 
ruin." Steele is said to have received it as he believed it was meant 
by his friend, to do him service. The whole story is denied by some 
authorities. See Aitken's " Life," Vol. I, p. 342. 

109 31 Doctor Hoadly (John Hoadly), (1711-1776), son of Bishop Benja- 
min Hoadly, a famous champion of liberal views in matters of Church and 



NOTES' 265 

State. He was a poet and dramatist, and the friend of Garrick and 
Hogarth. " The passage quoted by Thackeray may be found in John 
Nichols' " Epistolary Correspondence of Sir Richard Steele," London, 
1809, II, 508, note, where it is given as ' extracted from a letter written 
by Dr. John Hoadly ' " (Phelps). 

110 24 Mr. Joseph Miller (1684-1738)-: known as Joe Miller, the 
actor and humorist. John Mottley published in 1739 a collection 
" unwarrantably entitled ' Joe Miller's Jest Book.' " Cf. the " Dic- 
tionary of National Biography." 

113 8 Amazed, confused, its fate unknown : from " The Day of 
Judgment," found among Swift's papers after his death, and first printed 
in a letter from Lord Chesterfield to Voltaire, Aug. 27, 1752. 

117 14 Barmecide's : the Barmecide prince in the " Arabian Nights " 
set an imaginary feast before a beggar, and urged him to eat. 

119 30 beignets d'abricot : apricot fritters. — du monde in polite society. 

121 (Note 4) Gibber, Colley (1671-1757) : an actor, a playwright, and a 
good dramatic critic. He became poet-laureate in 1 730. His best-known 
writing is the " Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber, Comedian," 1740. 
Pope made him, in 1742, the hero of the new edition of the " Dunciad." 
It would appear that Pope began the trouble by ridiculing Cibber, and 
finally drove him into retaliation. For a picturesque account of the 
quarrel and of the incident referred to by Thackeray, see Pope in John- 
son's "Lives." 

PRIOR 

Observe the admirable and charming way in which Thackeray enters 
into the appreciation of Prior's quality. 

Bibliography. Prior in Johnson's " Lives." G. A. Aitken, in Con- 
temporary Review, May, 1890. 

123 (Note 3) Remarks on the Characters of the Court of Queen Anne : 
the source of this observation is a book by John Macky (d. 1726), a 
Scotchman, who served as an agent and spy for the government. He 
wrote "Memoirs of the Secret Services of John Macky, Esq., during 
the Reign of King William, Queen Anne, and King George I. Including 
also the true Secret History of the Rise, Promotion, etc., of the EngHsh 
and Scots Nobility ; Oj05cers, Civil, Military, Naval, and other Persons 
of distinction from the Revolution. In their respective Characters 
at large," etc. (1733)- 

124 8 Batavian : from the name of the early German tribe which first 
inhabited the Insula Batavorum. Holland, and later the entire Nether- 
lands, was called Batavia. 



266 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

124 9 Busby of the Rod : see note to 44 7. 

124 12 Montague : it is doubtful whether Montagu (later Lord Hali- 
fax, see 45 28) gave much more than his name to the work on "The 
Town and Country Mouse." 

124 26 Alcaics : a classical meter very difficult to reproduce in Eng- 
lish. The form may be found in any treatment of prosody. It takes 
its name from Alcaeus, a Greek poet of about 600 B.C. Thackeray 
probably uses it here for any delicate lyrical stanza. 

125 24 Stator Jove : Jove the Stayer. 

126 14 Spence, Joseph (1699-1768) : the friend of Pope and the author 
of a book of literary anecdotes, the source of much later biographical 
information. There is a delightful essay on Spence in Mr. Austin 
Dobson's " Eighteenth Century Vignettes," first series. 

127 6 Halifax, Charles Montagu (1661-1715) : first Earl of, see 124 12, 
45 28. 

127 9 So whilst in fevered dreams : these verses are taken not from 
the poem as first printed, but from the variations in a copy printed in 
1692. Thackeray has changed the poem considerably. His first stanza 
is Prior's third, his second is Prior's first. He has also changed the order 
of the lines from abab to abba, and altered the wording somewhat. See 
the Aldine Edition of Prior, Vol. I, p. 46. 

127 17 Would not you fancy that a poet of our own days? an idle 
question after Thackeray has altered Prior's verses to the scheme of 
Tennyson's " In Memoriam." 

128 3 The God of us versemen : the closing stanzas of " A Better 
Answer." 

128 19 She sighed, she smiled : the closing stanzas of " The Garland." 

129 2 Deus sit, etc. : God be merciful to this drinker. Walter de 
Mapes (fi. 1200) was a medieval wit and the author of a collection of 
anecdotes and legends. He has been regarded by many as the author 
of a part of the " Lancelot." Mapes is famous for the drinking song : — 

" Meum est propositum in taberna mori, 
Vinum sit appositum morientis ori, 
Ut dicant cum venerint angelorum chori, 
Deus sit propitius huic potatori." 

This song is probably his, though the point is unsettled. 

129 3 Johnson, who spoke slightingly : " Mrs. Thrale disputed with 
him on the merits of Prior. He attacked him powerfully ; said he wrote 
of love like a man who had never felt it : his love verses were college 
verses ; " . . . Mrs. Thrale holding to her point, he said : " My d^ar 



NOTES 267 

lady, talk no more of this- Nonsense can be defended but by non- 
sense." Boswell, ed. Hill, Vol. II, 89-90. 

129 28 Colbert de Torcy (1665-1746) : French diplomat; at onetime 
minister to England ; minister of State in France. 

GAY 

Bibliography. Austin Dobson in Ward's "Poets," 1880. Gay, in 
Johnson's " Lives." The article by Austin Dobson in the " Dictionary of 
National Biography." 

130 (Note) He said he would write to Robin and Harry : Harley and 
Bolingbroke. 

131 8 Craggs, James (1686-1721) : the younger, secretary of state. 
He was implicated in the scandal connected with the South Sea Bubble. 

132 17 Duchess of Queensberry : see Mr. Austin Dobson's " Prior's 
Kitty " in the " Eighteenth Century Vignettes," first series. She was 
the subject of Prior's poem " The Female Phaeton." 

136 4 Gay's " Fables " : the first series of Gay's " Fables " was dedicated 
to William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, third son of George 11. 
The Duke of Cumberland commanded the second army, against Prince 
Charles Edward, 1745 ; commanded the first army and defeated the 
rebels at Culloden, 1746. 

136 27 Philips, Ambrose (1675-1749) : he was a member of Addison's 
circle. On account of his pastorals he was bitterly attacked in Pope's 
satires, Pope not relishing another's success in fields in which he himself 
desired to excel. 

137 8 Arbuthnot, John (i 667-1 735) : physician in ordinary to Queen 
Anne, the attractive friend of most of the great literary men of the day, 
a wit and author of satires of considerable merit. 

137 13 Rubini, Giovanni Batista (1795-1854) : a very celebrated Italian 
tenor. It was said of him that he had tears in his voice. 

138 1 its wearisome continuation, Polly : this sequel to the " Beggar's 
Opera," was on account of its political satire prohibited from being acted, 
but had a large sale when it was published. 

139 9 Harcourt, Simon (1661 ?-i'/2'j) : First Viscount, was lord chan- 
cellor under Queen Anne, and noted for his eloquence. He was the friend 
of Bolingbroke, Pope, and other famous men. 

POPE 

Latter-day investigation has proved Thackeray's estimate of Pope, as 
a man, to be wholly partial. Pope had not only his share of the sharp 
and malignant spirit of his age, the age of satire, but was in addition 



268 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

morbidly sensitive and morbidly retaliative. Where he fancied he 
discerned a blow, he struck back and struck hard. His other faults are 
along the lines of scheming and double dealing, vanity and pettiness. 
All the faults are interwoven with his pitiful sickness and disease. What 
we admire in him is his pluck, his independence of spirit, his high sense 
of friendship, his filial devotion, and his instinctive tenderness where no 
worse mood was roused in his morbidly sensitive breast. Though 
neither his vanity nor his self-respect would receive pity, nor the sharp 
point of his satire show a need of it, he calls for pity far oftener than for 
blame. He easily remains, when all is said, the leading poet of his day, 
a man of great energy and reading, the most quoted English poet since 
Shakespeare, and one of our great masters of sheer technique. 

It is interesting to compare Thackeray, Johnson, and Taine, in their 
respective treatments of Pope's physical infirmities. Taine regards 
Pope's malady as the distasteful source of his weakness as a writer, 
Johnson as the subject for more or less indelicate detail ; Thack- 
eray as a claim on our pity and admiration for such , accomplishments 
against such odds. 

Bibliography. The introduction and notes by Elwin and Courthope, 
in the Murray edition of Pope, 1871-1889. The "Life" by Sir Leslie 
Stephen, " EngHsh Men of Letters " series. Pope, in Johnson's " Lives." 

141 4 greatest literary artist : if this conclusion is to hold, one must take 
Thackeray to use the word " art " here in the continental sense, of sheer 
technique more or less independent of the matter. Thackeray probably 
means the remark to apply in every way, an opinion that will scarcely 
hold, though it indicates his own enthusiasm for the eighteenth century 
— and his ignorance of Milton ! 

142 7 In his youthful poem of '' Alcander " : written when Pope was be- 
tween thirteen and fourteen years old. By the advice of friends it was 
burned. Two of the couplets are preserved : — 

" As man's meanders to the vital spring 
Roll all their tides, then back their circles bring." 

" The Dunciad," III, 11. 55-56. 

" Whose honours with increase of ages grow, 
As streams roll down, enlarging as they flow." 
An Essay on Criticism, 11. 191-192. See Courthope, Vol. V, p. 157. 

142 19 Ariosto (1474-1533) : an ItaUan epic poet, author of "Orlando 
Furioso," a richly colored romance that is calculated to delight the young 
heart. 



NOTES 269 

142 20 battling with the Cid for the love of Chimene : the Cid is the 
hero of the Spanish ballad romance. Thackeray here probably refers 
to Corneille's " Le Cid," where Chimene is the maiden whom the Cid 
loves and after many trials wins. 

142 21 Armida's garden : in Tasso's " Jerusalem Delivered," Armida 
is the sorceress who seduces Rinaldo from the siege of Jerusalem. 

143 7 Mr. Curll: Edmund Curll (1675-1747), a bookseller and pub- 
lisher ; he was concerned in many doubtful affairs, and was accused with 
seeming justice of publishing immoral books, of forgeries, and other 
underhand actions. Pope held him up to ridicule in the " Dunciad," 

143 27 a deux fins : looking in two directions, serving two ends. 

143 29 rechauffe : warmed over. 

144 24 Oppian : a Greek didactic poet of the second century B.C. 

145 1 apprete : prepared beforehand, cooked up. 

146 22 Sir Richard : Sir Richard Blackmore, the physician-poet, au- 
thor of tedious poems now forgotten, and the butt of the critics and wits 
of his day ; not Richard Steele (noted by Professor Regel) . 

146 (Note) Oldisworth, William (1680-1734) : author and translator. 
He edited the Tory Examiner, translated Horace, etc. See the " Dictionary 
of National Biography." 

146 (Note) Creech: Thomas Creech (i654-i7oo),translator of Lucretius, 
Horace, Theocritus, Juvenal, etc. A disappointed love and pecuniary 
troubles caused him to commit suicide. 

147 3 cachet : the seal, stamp, password. 

149 14 White's : White's Club was established as White's Chocolate- 
house in 1698, in St. James Street. The Tatler states in the first number 
that "all accounts of gallantry, pleasure, and entertainment, shall be 
under the article of White's Chocolate-house." The Club became 
fashionable and subsequently notorious for its gambling. Swift censures 
it, and Hogarth put it into his pictures. 

149 14 The " Patriot King " : by Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke, 
(1678-1751). Cf. p. 146 2, and p. 148 6. The Earl of Peterborough 
took Barcelona in 1705. Of all these men Thackeray means to say 
that their many-sidedness and versatility of interest was a part of their 
greatness. 

152 2 Budgell, Eustace (1686-173 7) : a miscellaneous writer and 
journalist, a cousin of Addison's, and at one time his roommate. He 
was ruined in the South Sea Bubble and finally drowned himself. 

152 2 Tickell : see 44 10. 

152 2 Philips: see 136 27. 

152 2 Carey, Henry (d. 1743) : the author of numerous farces 
and songs. His best-known piece is the popular " Sally in our Alley." 



2 70 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

152 3 Duroc : Gerard Christopher Michel, Duke of Friuli, French 
general and diplomat and a favorite of Napoleon's, by whose side he fell 
fighting, in the campaign of 1807, 

152 4 Hardy, Sir Thomas Masterman (i 769-1839) : Nelson's flag- 
captain on the Vanguard and the Foudroyant. For a noble account 
of the part he played at Nelson's death, see Southey's " Life of Nelson," 
pp. 299-302. 

152 9 spadille and manille : in the old games of ombre and quadrille 
spadille was the ace of spades, manille the highest card but one. 

152 17 Wycherley, William (1640-1716) : the dramatist, author of 
" The Country Wife," " The Plain Dealer," etc. He is like Congreve in 
many respects. Recent investigation has shown that Pope altered the let- 
ters so as to produce a false impression. See, for instance, ''Spence's An- 
ecdotes " in Austin Dobson's " Eighteenth Century Vignettes," first series. 

153 6 triumph of " Cato " : Addison's " Cato," though not especially dra- 
matic, won a great success because of its relation to the political issues of 
the day. The Whigs and Tories vied with each other in applause, and 
the play had a run — enormous then — of 35 nights. See Courthope's 
" Addison " in the "English Men of Letters " series. Chap. VI. 

154 27 Bernadotte (i 764-1844) : a celebrated marshal of Napoleon's, 
who, after having fought by the latter's side, was chosen by the Swedish 
diet as Crown Prince and successor of King Charles XIII. He headed the 
Northern troops against Napoleon in 1813, thus becoming an enemy. 
Pope is compared to him. 

156 1 And were there one whose fires : the punctuation here is 
changed somewhat from the original. And in 1. 11 should be hut; as in 
1. 13 should be or; even in 1. 15, e^en. 

156 23 "I sent the verses to Mr. Addison" : Pope is quoted by Dr. John- 
son as saying that he " adjoined the first sketch " of the lines. 

156 33 Saint Sebastian : a Christian martyr under Diocletian, whose 
soldiers shot Sebastian full of arrows and left him for dead. He re- 
covered, appeared before the emperor with a profession of faith, and was 
put to death. 

157 5 viveurs : high livers. , 

158 2 Thomson, James (i 700-1 748) : the famous poet of nature; 
author of the " Seasons " and " The Castle of Indolence." 

158 14 Atterbury, Francis (1662-1732) : Bishop of Rochester, chaplain 
to William and Mary, and chaplain in ordinary to Queen Anne, He 
died a political exile in Paris. Atterbury was intimate with the literary 
men of his day and his correspondence is full of information concerning 
them and their affairs. 



NOTES 271 

158 24 Garth: died in 1719 instead of 1718 as stated in the notes. 

159 2 Codrington, Sir Edward (1668-1710) : he was known as a soldier, 
governor of the Leeward Islands, and the benefactor of All Souls, Oxford. 

160 9 Jervas, Charles (1675 ?-i 739) : portrait painter, a pupil of 
Kneller's. He was also the author of a translation of " Don Quixote." 

160 9 Richardson, Jonathan (1665-1745) : the elder. He succeeded 
Kneller as the fashionable portrait painter. He painted Pope, Prior, 
and Steele. He was the author of poems and other writings, among 
them treatises on painting. 

160 13 Kneller, Sir Godfrey (1646-1723) : the fashionable portrait 
painter of his day. Among his sitters were Charles II, Louis XIV, 
William III, Queen Anne, and George I. 

164 9 the famous Greek picture : " The Sacrifice of Iphigenia." In it 
Timanthes, a Greek artist, 400 B.C., is said to have painted grief on the 
faces of all but Agamemnon the father, whose face was left veiled. 

165 18 Gibber : see note for 121, Note 4. 

166 5 Tibbald : Lewis Theobald, 1688-1744; famous as a Shake- 
spearean editor, in which capacity he is one of the foremost. He won 
Pope's enmity by his " Shakespeare restored, or a Specimen of the Many 
Errors as well committed as unamended by Mr. Pope in his late Edition 
of this Poet." Pope in return made him the hero of the " Dunciad " ; 
but in his second edition of the Shakespeare did not scruple to make 
use, unacknowledged, of Theobald's suggestions. In revenge Theobald 
published his edition of Shakespeare, which put Pope's editing to shame. 
Thackeray's spelling shows the pronunciation of the name. 

166 5 Welsted, Leonard (i 688-1 747) : the author of poems, occasional, 
political, personal, didactic, and satirical. 

166 19 Petty France : an old street, now New Broad Street, near 
Bishopsgate. It took its name from the Frenchmen dwelling there. 

166 21 Budge Row : Budge is the name of lambskin with the fur side 
turned out. Budge Row, near Watling Street, was so called because of 
the merchants who traded there in lambskin. 

167 26 She comes, she comes! the concluding lines of the " Dunciad." 

168 Between 11. 8 and 9, Thackeray has omitted four lines. The 
punctuation is altered from the original ; and in 1. 3, fell should be 
written felt. 

169 12 hero: the pupil must be once more warned, as he takes leave 
of this admirably written tribute, that Thackeray's estimate of Pope 
is far too high. It rests on deficiency of critical knowledge and judg- 
ment and upon only partial acquaintance with the details of Pope's 
biography. 



272 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 



HOGARTH 

Observe that while Hogarth is not a writer, Thackeray's consideration 
of his works is almost entirely literary. The literary criticism of art is 
concerned with the meaning and the story involved, rather than with 
the execution and artistic quality ; this type of art criticism is all too 
common in English. In the case of Hogarth, however, whose pictures 
are narrative as a rule rather than picturesque, and who is more admi- 
rable as an interpreter of the life of his time than as an artist, the literary 
treatment is more justifiable. Indeed, it would seem that Hogarth him- 
self often regarded himself as a story-teller. 

Bibliography. The study by Austin Dobson in the " Great Artists " 
series, 1879. The article by Austin Dobson in the " Dictionary of 
National Biography." 

170 15 Jonathan Wild (i682?-i725) : an informer, who became the 
head of a large corporation of thieves, and opened offices for the recovery 
and restoration of property stolen by his dependents. He became famous 
as a thief taker, but was ultimately hanged for receiving rewards for 
restoring the property stolen, a-s told above. Fielding based on his 
life a famous satirical novel. 

171 3 Goody Two-Shoes : this story is claimed by some editors to 
have been written by Goldsmith about 1764. 

172 14 Jack Sheppard (i 702-1 724) : a robber famous for his escapes. He 
was finally hanged at Tyburn before an immense crowd. His life and 
wonderful exploits became the subject of ballads, plays, and memoirs, 
in some of which, as also in the case of Wild, Defoe had a hand. 

172 21 Draco : a celebrated lawgiver, seventh century B.C. Plutarch 
mentions the harshness of Draco's laws, nearly all crimes being punish- 
able with death. His name became a synonym for harshness. Modern 
scholarship has declared this unjust ; that the most that can be 
said against Draco is that he carried out the laws as he found 
them. 

173 10 baldaquin : the word *' baldachin " usually refers to an altar 
canopy. A certain effect is gotten here by using the word in connection 
with so grand a personage. 

174 2 Andromeda : in the myth, was freed from her chains and 
escaped the sea monster through the heroism of Perseus, who afterward 
married her. 

174 3 Judith : a beautiful woman of Bethulia, in order to save her 
country, went out into the camp of Holofernes, captain of the besieging 
hosts, gained access to his tent by offering herself as his mistress, and 



NOTES 273 

finally slew him. The story is finely told in the Apocrypha. Thackeray 
explains the significance of the pictures. 

175 10 Whittington, Sir Richard (d. 1423) : rose from lowly origin to 
be lord mayor. His career gave rise to many ballads and legends, as, for 
instance, '' London's Glory and Whittingdon's Renown, or a looking-glass 
for the citizens of London." See the " Dictionary of National Biog- 
raphy " for the story of the famous cat. The ballad is on the wall in the 
first plate of "Industry and Idleness." "London Trentice " is also on 
the wall in the first plate, hanging beside the " Mayor of Whittindon," 
in Frank's corner. 

175 12 " Moll Flanders " : by Daniel Defoe (i659?-i73i), a famous 
story of low life, full of coarse realism. It is nailed to the post in Tom 
Idle's corner, near a big tankard of beer. 

176 28 apotheosis : the elevation of a hero into a god. Note the 
delicate satire in Thackeray's use of the word. 

177 5 Squire Western : the burly father of Sophia in Fielding's " Tom 
Jones." 

177 31 Bridewell : formerly a palace, given to the city by Edward VI 
as a workhouse or house of correction, removed in 1864. 

178 8 Johnny Cope (d. 1760) : commanded the forces in Scotland 
during the rebellion in 1745. When rumors came to him of Prince 
Charles's arrival. Cope marched to check the prince's progress. Prince 
Charles made an attack by night, and Cope's troops were utterly routed. 
The Scots had a song " Hey, Jonnie Cope ! are ye waulkin yet? " An 
investigation later exonerated Cope and his officers and put the blame 
on his private men. 

178 9 CuUoden : see 136 4. 

178 10 Parson Adams : a character in Fielding's "Joseph Andrews." 

178 19 Humphrey Clinker : the poor lad who turns out to be the son 
of his employer. Smollett's " Expedition of Humphrey Clinker." 

178 22 Jack Hatchway : a retired naval officer in Smollett's " Pere- 
grine Pickle." 

178 23 Lismahago, Captain : a Scotch officer on half pay, eccentric, 
pedantic, and disputatious, in " Humphrey Clinker." 

178 30 Cockpit : in Hogarth's drawing the gamblers are leaning around 
the platform and two very sorry birds are charily eyeing each other. 

178 31 : Macheath and Polly : see 8 7 and 138 l. 

179 4 Roderick Random : Smollett's hero of the novel of that name. 
Observe how in all of these allusions Thackeray connects the life of the 
time as expressed in the writers, Fielding, Gay, Smollett, and others, with 
the life of the time as we see it expressed in Hogarth the painter. He 



274 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

enforces thereby a delicate insistence on Hogarth's claim to appear in 
the series of humorists. 

179 5 Monsieur de Strap: a devoted follower of Roderick Random. 
He was poorly rewarded by his idol. 

179 9 Broughton the boxer ( 1 705-1 789) : the father of English pugilism. 
He became a favorite of society, even of royalty, for the Duke of Cum- 
berland gave him a place among the Yeomen of the Guard, and backed 
him with £10,000 in his fight with Slack in 1750. Broughton was beaten, 
retired from the ring, and set up a school for lessons and exhibitions. 

179 9 Sarah Malcolm (i 710-1733) : a charwoman of the Temple, 
London. She murdered her employer and two servants, and was exe- 
cuted at the age of 23. 

179 10 Simon Lovat, Lord (1667-1745) : (not the Master of Lovat, as 
stated by Professor Phelps). Lord Lovat was one of the Scottish chief- 
tains of the old style and an adherent of the Stuarts. He was outlawed, 
but was persuaded by his clan to return. For his own profit he trans- 
ferred his clan's forces from the insurgents' to the government's side. 
In the rebellion of 1 745 he attempted to play a double game by putting his 
son on the side of the Stuarts and remaining himself loyal to the govern- 
ment. He was declared a traitor and beheaded. Hogarth's portrait of him 
represents him in the act of counting over on his fingers the rebel forces. 

179 10 John Wilkes (i 727-1 797) : a noted demagogue. He was the 
sheriff of London, Lord Mayor, and the object of numerous libel suits. 
He was repeatedly elected to Parliament, but as often rejected, until in 
1774 he took his seat without opposition and kept it until his retirement 
in 1790. 

182 (Note) Churchill, Charles (1731-1764) : curate of St. Johns, West- 
minster, and author of numerous satirical poems. He was a partisan of 
Wilkes and the most powerful satirist between Pope and Byron. 

183 5 bourgeois : middle class, implying middle-class prejudices and 
ideals. Used very aptly here. 

183 9 Correggio (1494-1534) : one of the greatest of the later Renais- 
sance painters in Italy, noted for the mellow warmth of his style. 

183 10 the Caracci, Agostino (1558-1602), Annibale (1560-1609) ; 
brothers, with their cousin Ludovico (i 555-1619), of Bologna. They 
founded the eclectic school of painting, the theory that great art may be 
produced by combined imitation of the selected excellence from each of 
the great masters. 

183 13 Correggio's "Sigismunda" according to Brewer's " The Reader's 
Handbook," the spelling should be Sigismonda, as indeed it is in some 
of the old prints of the picture. The catalogue of the National Gallery 



NOTES 275 

(Mr. Austin Dobson, " Eighteenth Century Vignettes," first series, 
p. 109) spells the name as Thackeray does. Sigismonda was the daugh- 
ter of Tancred, king of Salerno. She loved her father's squire, Guiscardo, 
and secretly married him. By her father's order Guiscardo was killed 
and his heart sent to Sigismonda in a golden casket. She poisoned her- 
self, asking her father in her dying moments to bury her in the same grave 
with Guiscardo. Dryden and Boccaccio have treated the theme. Sigis- 
munda seems to be another story. (See Brewer.) There is no Sigis- 
munda by Correggio, but in Hogarth's time a picture by Furini was 
brought to England and palmed off as a Correggio. Sigismonda furnishes 
an imaginative and dramatic motive obviously unsuited to Hogarth. 
The picture roused a great deal of satirical criticism which was due 
partly to political prejudice. Among the critics were Walpole and 
Wilkes. Hogarth was very sensitive in the matter, defended his master- 
piece as he thought it, kept it by him, and in his last requests, instructed 
his wife not to sell it for less than £500. After her death it was bought 
in for £54. (See Mr. Dobson's charming essay mentioned above.) 

184 15 Listen, John (i 776-1846) : a well-known comic actor; among 
his roles were Polonius, Bottom, and Sir Andrew Aguecheek. 

184 21 Churchill : see note to 182, Note. 

186 18 hopscotch : "a, children's game in which the player, while 
hopping on one leg, drives a disk of stone or a fragment of tile with the 
foot from one compartment to another of an oblong figure traced or 
scotched (scored) on the ground, neither the foot nor the stone being 
allowed to rest on a line." Century Dictionary. 

191 2 cadets : used in the sense of a younger son or younger brother. 

SMOLLETT 

Bibliography. " Life of Smollett," by David Hannay, in " Great 
Writers " series. Thomas Seccombe "in the " Dictionary of National 
Biography." Professor Minto in the " Encyclopaedia Britannica." 

194 8 Doctor Caius : in Shakespeare's " Merry Wives of Windsor." 

194 10 Major Dalgetty : a soldier of fortune and pedant combined, 
something like Don Quixote. In Scott's " Legend of Montrose." 

194 18 Bladud : the father of King Lear. He " built Bath and dedi- 
cated to Minerva the medicinal spring which is called Bladud's Well." 
Brewer, " The Reader's Handbook." 

FIELDING 

Fielding was Thackeray's acknowledged master in some respects ; 
and what makes this discussion so attractive is the hearty manliness and 
health in the appreciation. 



276 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

Bibliography. The study by Mr. Austin Dobson in " The English 
Men of Letters " series. Article by Sir Leslie Stephen in the " Dic- 
tionary of National Biography." 

196 27 Oldfield, Nance (1683-1730) : a popular actress at DruryLane 
and the Haymarket. She was good in both comedy and tragedy, 
and was praised by Steele, Gibber, Walpole, and others. She was a rival 
of Mrs. Bracegirdle, whom finally she surpassed and drove into retire- 
ment. She is buried in Westminster Abbey, beneath Congreve's monu- 
ment. 

196 27 Bracegirdle, Anne : see 48 20. 

198 22 "Pamela" (1740): the first of Richardson's novels. It was 
the story of a virtuous serving maid who comes through all temptations 
to a happy and virtuous end. The whole book was filled with moraliz- 
ings and sentimentality. The student should not be led by the text to 
underestimate the merits of Richardson's work. 

199 8 Mohock : the Mohocks were an organization named after a tribe 
of American savages and formed for rioting and violence. They played 
pranks in the streets at night, and went so far at times as to slash 
people's faces, etc. They are discussed in the Spectator, No. 324. 
Numerous attempts were made to put an end to the order, but with ill 
success. The Mohocks continued to exist until the close of George the 
First's reign. 

200 2 The kind and wise old Johnson : " There is all the difference 
in the world between 'characters of nature and characters of manners ; 
and there is the difference between the characters of Fielding, and 
those of Richardson. Characters of manners are very entertaining ; 
but they are to be understood by a more superficial observer than char- 
acters of nature, where a man must dive into the recesses of the human 
heart," Boswell, ed. Hill, Vol. II, p. 55. Elsewhere Johnson spoke of 
Fielding as a blockhead, a barren rascal. Ibid., p. 199. 

200 7 Gibbon writes : Gibbon wrote human manners, not humors 
and manners, " Miscellanies," Vol. I, p. 4. He also speaks in a note, 
p. 273, of Fielding as among " the first of ancient or modem ro- 
mancers." 

201 6, 22 Blifil, Lady Bellaston, Parson Thwackum, Miss Seagrim : all 
characters in " Tom Jones." Charles and Joseph Surface are the two 
brothers in Sheridan's " School for Scandal." 

203 21 the most charming character in English fiction : Thackeray, 
in " Vanity Fair," named his heroine after Fielding's Amelia. 
203 23 Colonel Bath : a poor and proud gentleman in " Amelia." 
203 24 Colonel Gardiner, James (i 688-1 745) : a colonel of dragoons, 



NOTES 277 

who after a wild youth, became very devout, fought with incredible cour- 
age, and fell finally in the Rebellion of 1745. 

203 24 Duke of Cumberland : see 136 4. 

204 15 coup de main : a deft stroke, a clever move. 

STERNE 

It is hard to keep in patience with Thackeray's discussion of Sterne, 
the man. In the first place he fails to make allowance for the great dif- 
ference between the standards of Sterne's age and the standards of ours. 
He demands of Sterne what in Sterne's own day only the gravest of the 
grave would have desired. The greatest fault in Sterne, his lack of 
any stability, is closely related to his greatest physical infirmity. His was 
the consumptive temperament, the tendency toward the morbidly emo- 
tional, the restlessness, the toying with forbidden and lubricious ideas ; 
a life of sickly passions, sickly moods, feverish depressions and exalta- 
tions, ups and downs. He acted at the first impulse, he said, " according 
as the fly stings." His foolish heart seems undeserving of Thackeray's 
energetic accusations. Sterne would never have laid claim to most of 
the virtues that Thackeray assails him for not having, and would doubt- 
less have preferred sensibility, as he called it, to reason and character. 

Granting him his point of view, Thackeray's essay is a masterpiece of 
satirical portraiture, vivid, full of movement, and beguiling the reader 
to follow the author's lead. 

Bibliography. "The Life of Laurence Sterne," by Percy Fitzgerald, 
1906. The "Life" by H. D. Traill in the "English Men of Letters" 
series. "The Life and Times of Laurence Sterne," by Wilbur L. Cross, 
1909, — by far the best book on the subject. 

209 10 Trim, Le Fevre, Uncle Toby : all characters in " Tristram 
Shandy." 

209 10 montero cap : from the Spanish for huntsman. " ' I would lay 
my Montero cap,' said Trim. Now Trim's Montero cap, as I once told 
you, was his constant wager." " Tristram Shandy," p. 422. 

209 11 roquelaure : a short cloak much worn in the eighteenth century. 

211 19 arroser : to water. 

211 25 nous arrivames, etc. : We arrived next day at Montpellier, 
where we found our friend Mr. Sterne, his wife, his daughter, Mr. Huet, 
and some other English women. I had, I confess, much pleasure in seeing 
again the good and agreeable Tristram. ... He had been quite a long time 
at Toulouse, where he would have amused himself but for his wife, who 
pursued him everywhere and wished to be in everything. The ways of 



278 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

this good lady have made him pass some pretty bad moments ; he bears 
all these trials with the patience of an angel. 

212 1 It was in December 1767 : Professor Regel (p. 84) in his notes 
on this lecture, quotes Fitzgerald as saying that in this letter Sterne speaks 
of himself as forty years old, putting the letter therefore in 1755 instead 
of 1767, the date selected by Thackeray. 

212 2 Yorick : the name of a delightful parson in " Tristram Shandy," 
but used often as a pen name by Sterne himself. 

212 4 Rabelais, Frangois (1490 ?-i 553?) : the great French satirist 
and humorist, and the author of the monstrous characters, Pantagruel, 
Panurge, and Gargantua, not unlike the creations of Swift. He was for 
a time cure of Meudon. 

212 13 jouer des sentiments : toy with sentiment, banter sentiments. 

212 26 Gray's Letters : " The quotation given in this footnote is really 
from two letters of Gray. The first part up to the words 'As to the 
volumes ' is from a letter to Thomas Wharton, April 22, 1760 ; the second 
is garbled, and may be found in Gray's letter to Wharton, July, 1760. 
See Gray's ' Works,' ed. Gosse, II, 36, 53." Phelps, p. 343. 

213 4 Elizabeth Draper : in the index of " The Life and Times," by 
W. L. Cross, may be found references for the various phases of Mrs. 
Draper's relations with Sterne. 

214 5 : Bathurst : see 68 10. 

215 15 Bramin : brahmin, a member of the Hindoo priestly caste. The 
word is here used by Sterne in playful reference to Eliza's living in India. 
The letter is altered slightly in places. See " Works," ed. Brown, p. 550. 

215 (Note 1) L'amoiu: n'est rien : love is nothing without senti- 
ment. 

216 31 Uncle Toby's widow : in " Tristram Shandy." " A daughter of 
Eve, for such was Widow Wadman, and 'tis all the character I intend 
to give of her, — That she was a perfect woman." 

217 7 Scarron, Paul (1610-1660) : a French realistic novelist and bur- 
lesque writer. In 1638, having become an invalid, he busied himself 
with writing comedies and farces that gave him the leadership in this 
field. Later he prepared to emigrate to America, but was prevented by 
his meeting Mile. D'Aubigne, whom he married, and who became some- 
time afterward the famous Madame de Maintenon, mistress, and, accord- 
ing to some authorities, wife, of Louis XIV. 

217 7 Waller, Edmund (1606-1687) : one of the most graceful of the 
early English lyrists. After the death of his wife he courted Dorothy 
Sidney, the daughter of the Earl of Leicester, giving her the name of 
Saccharissa. See Sterne's " Works," ed. J. P. Brown, II, 567. 



NOTES 279 

217 15 To Lady P : " O my dear lady, what a dishclout of a soul 

hast thou made of me ; . . . Would not any man in his senses run 
diametrically from you and as far as his legs would carry him, rather 
than thus causelessly, foolishly, and foolhardily expose himself afresh, 
and afresh where his heart and his reason tells him he should be sure to 
come off loser, if not totally undone ? Why should you tell me you would 
be glad to see me ? Does it give you pleasure to make me more unhappy ? 
... or does it add to your triumph that your eyes and lips have turned 
a man into a fool, whom the rest of the town is counting as a wit? I 
am a fool, the weakest, the most ductile, the most tender fool, that ever 
woman tried the weakness of ; and the most unsettled in my purpose 
and resolution of recovering my right mind. 'Tis but an hour ago that 
I kneeled down and swore that I never would come near you, and, after 
saying my Lord's Prayer for the s^ke of the close, of not being led into 
temptation, — out I sailed like any Christian hero, ready to take the 
field against the world, the flesh, and the devil . . . And now I am 
got so near you, ... I feel myself drawn into a vortex that has turned 
my brain upside downwards. And though I had purchased a box ticket 

to carry me to Miss 's benefit yet, I know very well that was a single 

line directed to me to let me know some Lady would be alone at seven 
and suffer me to spend the evening with her, she would infallibly see 
everything verified I have told her, etc." Thackeray's use of the letter 
is based on an error that here becomes unfair to Sterne. The letter to 
Lady Percy, however objectionable it may be in itself, belongs probably 
to April, 1765, certainly not to 1767, the date of the Eliza letters. See 
Cross's " Life and Times," p. 343. 

218 (Note 1) that of Falstaff : "So 'a cried out! God, God, God! 
three or four times : ... so 'a bade me lay more clothes on his feet : I 
put my hand into the bed and felt them, and they were as cold as any 
stone ; then I felt to his knees, and so upward, and upward, and all was as 
cold as any stone." " Henry V," II, iii, 8. 

219 29 Dr. Ferriar, John (1761-1815): a physician of Manchester, 
who, among other essays and dissertations, wrote " Illustrations of 
Sterne," 1798. 

219 34 Macdonald, John (not James) : was a gentleman's servant who 
became known as Beau Macdonald. He published in 1790 his " Travels 
in Various Parts." 

220 3 des chansons grivoises : rather doubtful songs ; off color, 

221 6 the desobligeante : so called because it could accommodate but 
one person. 

221 17 le tour est fait : ' the trick is done.' 



28o ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

221 17 Paillasse : a clown, dressed in stripes like the ticking of a mat- 
tress, whence the name. 

221 22 Joseph Surface : the hypocritical brother in Sheridan's " Scho6l 
for Scandal." 

222 2 Monsieur de Soubise's cook : Charles de Rohan, Prince de 
Soubise, (17 15-1787), was a favorite general and peer of Louis XV, 
whose favor, together with that of his mistresses the Pompadour and Du 
Barry, made Soubise marshal in the French army. He lost the battle 
of Rosbach in 1757, though later he won several victories. He was 
famous for his luxurious life, and when his camp was plundered after 
the battle, it was found to be crowded with cooks, actors, hair-dressers, 
dainties for the table and cosmetics for the toilet. A caricature repre- 
sented the prince with a lantern in his hand, the day after the battle, 
looking on the ground, and saying, " J have hunted well, where the devil 
is my army? " 

225 2 Gascoigne roundelay : Gascony is an old duchy in southwest 
France, celebrated for its romance and fighting blood. 

225 6 Viva la joia, fidon la tristessa : ' long live joy, away with sadness.' 

226 1 double entendre : double meaning, implying doubtful pro- 
priety. 

226 8 " David Copperfield" : Thackeray's children were devoted to 
Dickens. Dickens wrote a letter the morning after this lecture, thanking 
Thackeray heartily for the generous reference. 

GOLDSMITH 

It is pleasant to recall one of Thackeray's letters that tells us of how 
he spent the morning listening to his daughter read " The Deserted 
Village." It is interesting, too, to compare Thackeray's treatment with 
Macaulay's picturesque but more unsympathetic and Boswellian account. 

Bibliography. "Life and Times of OHver Goldsmith," John Forster, 
1854. The " Life " by James Prior, 1837. The " Life " by Washington 
Irving. Brief lives by William Black and Austin Dobson in the " Eng- 
lish Men of Letters " and " Great Writers " series, respectively. There is 
a recent biography by F. Frankfort Moore. 

226 10 Jete sur cette boule : these stanzas, like those from Prior, 
Thackeray has selected and arranged. They are to be found in any 
edition of Beranger under the title " Ma Vocation." The first two 
stanzas, as Thackeray has them, constitute the first stanza in Beranger ; 
Thackeray's third stanza is the first half of Beranger's last stanza. 

" Cast on this globe, 
Ugly, weak, and suffering. 



NOTES 281 

Smothered in the crowd 

For being so little, 

A touching plaint 

Came from my mouth. 

The good God said to me : Sing, 

Sing, poor little one ! 

"•To sing, or I mistake, 
Is my task here below. 
All those I amuse thus 
Will they not love me ? " 

226 22 Beranger (1780-1857) : popular among the French for his lyrics, 
political, amatory, philosophical, and satirical. 

228 (Note 1) Herder, Johann Gottfried von (1744-1803) : German 
philosopher and critic. He attacked the artificial literary spirit of his 
time, and wrote with insight on various subjects, philological, theological, 
aesthetic, and political. 

231 14 Poor little ancestors : note the tender and whimsical quality 
of the phrase. 

231 17 uncle Contarine : the husband of Oliver's aunt on his father's 
side. Though not possessed of large means, he was generous and for- 
giving to a degree in matters where Oliver was concerned. Goldsmith 
in his Irish days used to spend many happy hours with Uncle Contarine. 
See Forster's " Life," Vol. I, Chap. II. The name is derived from an 
ancient Venetian family, the Contarini. 

23122 "Mistake of a Night": the second title to Goldsmith's 
" She Stoops to Conquer." For the incident, see Forster's " Life," I, 19. 

233 18 buckeen : a younger son of the second-rate gentry in Ireland. 

233 21 study at the Temple : the old lodge of the Knights Templars, 
built in the 12th century ; and now Temple Church and the Inns of 
Court, known as the Inner and Middle Temple, and occupied by a law 
school. 

233 22 woolsack : a bag of wool used in the chair of the lord chancellor. 
In Elizabethan days it was decreed, in order to remind all of the impor- 
tance of wool, that sacks of wool be placed " in the House of Peers 
whereon the judges sat." 

234 3 Farheim, Du Petit, and Duhamel du Monceau : in the letter, 
Forster's " Life," I, 435,- Goldsmith writes Farhein, Petit, and Du 
Hammel de Monceau. Farhein isa name that has escaped identifica- 
tion. Professor Phelps suggests Ferrein (1693-1769): a professor in the 



282 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

College of France and in the Jardin des Plantes. Petit, Antoine (1718- 
1794), succeeded Ferrein in his anatomy professorship in the Jardin 
des Plantes. Duhamel du Monceau, Henri Louis (1700-1782): a 
noted botanist, and author of numerous books on the subject. 

234 5 that story which the youth related : for this delicious and 
lengthy letter, see Forster's " Life," I, 431. 

234 20 But me not destined : from the " Traveller," 1. 23. 

235 7 that queer coal scuttle : for this story, see Forster's " Life." 
I, 170. 

235 16 Sir Joshua Reynolds (17 23-1 792) : the great portrait painter. 
He was the first president of the Royal Academy, the author of a book 
of " Discourses " on art matters, and the founder of the Club to which 
belonged Johnson, Goldsmith, Garrick, and other famous men. Reynolds 
is said to have declared that he founded the Club in order to give Dr. 
Johnson abundant opportunity for talking. 

235 18 Sure, Jack : Goldsmith said Sam. For the incident, see Forster's 
"Life," I, 85. 

235 28 gooseberry fool : the epithet comes from Goldsmith's " Re- 
taliation," 1. 16. (Noted by Professor Regel.) 

" Magnanimous Goldsmith a gooseberry fool." 

236 8 Beattie, James (i 775-1803) : a Scotch poet, essayist, and philo- 
sophical writer, author of " The Minstrel," " Dissertations," etc. 

236 9 Kelly, Hugh (1739-1777) : playwright and author of essays and 
discourses. His " False Delicacy " was produced at Garrick's theater 
in rivalry with Goldsmith's " Good-natured Man." 

237 4 when Newbery kept back the manuscript : for the sale of the 
" Vicar of Wakefield " manuscript, see Forster's " Life," II, 359. Va- 
rious reasons, the chief of which was probably lack of confidence on the 
publisher's part in the sale of the work, delayed the publication for two 
years, by which time Goldsmith was already famous as the author of 
the " Traveller." 

237 6 Colman's actors : George Colman, himself a playwright, was the 
manager of Co vent Garden. He hesitated for months about producing 
" She Stoops to Conquer," but was finally induced to do so, chiefly at 
the solicitations of Dr. Johnson. When the time came for the rehearsals, 
the actors, following the manager, refused to play the parts of young 
Marlow and Tony Lumpkin, and worst of all Mrs. Abingdon, for whom 
Goldsmith had talked of writing the part, would not play Miss Hard- 
castle. Johnson, Reynolds, and others came to the rehearsals and 
applauded, but Colman remained hopeless, even to the point of refusing 



NOTES 283 

to provide new scenery and costumes. We have a letter from Goldsmith, 
written after the success of the comedy, in which his weariness appears : 
" I cannot help saying I am very sick of the stage," and he proceeds to 
relate his troubles in connection with the Prologue and the Epilogue. 
See Forster's " Life," II, 330. 

After the triumphant success of the play, however, it was Colman's 
time to suffer. He was literally pelted with lampoons, squibs of every 
sort, accused of jealousy and a dozen other motives for keeping the play 
back. Irving, in Chap. XXXVII of his " Life," quotes one of these 
squibs : — 

TO GEORGE COLMAN, Esq 

On the Success of Dr. Goldsmith's New Comedy. 

" Come, Coley, doff those mourning weeds, 
Nor thus with jokes be flamm'd ; 
Tho' Goldsmith's present play succeeds, 
His next may still be damn'd. 

As this has 'scaped without a fall. 
To sink his next prepare ; 
New actors hire from Wapping Wall 
And dresses from Rag Fair. 

For scenes let tattered blankets fly. 
The prologue Kelly write ; 
Then swear again the piece must die 
Before the author's night. 

Should these tricks fail, the lucky elf, 
To bring to lasting shame. 
E'en write the best you can yourself, 
And print it in his name.'" 

237 11 Fox, Charles James (1749-1806) : lord of the Admiralty, lord 
of the treasury, etc., member of the Club. He wrote a " History of the 
Revolution of 1688." He opposed Pitt on numerous occasions. A few 
days before his death he moved the aboHtion of the slave trade. See 
the " Dictionary, of National Biography." 

237 29 to one Griffiths : Griffiths, the bookseller, was the proprietor of 
the Monthly Review. Goldsmith had served him as a reviewer, but the two 
had disagreed, and Griffiths had attacked several of Goldsmith's writings. 



284 ENGLISH HUMORISTS 

The painful letter here referred to may be found in Forster's " Life," 
I, 160. Forster regards the affair as of no unusual importance, but as 
resulting from Goldsmith's imprudent charity having driven him to de- 
posit the books with a friend in return for a loan. The letter is a second 
one, and in reply to an unexpectedly harsh one from Griffiths. 

238 32 Mr. Mickle, William Junius (i 735-1 788) : born in Edinburgh, 
but lived mainly in England, was a poet of some fame in his day. He 
is the author of '' There's nae luck about the house." See Palgrave's 
''Golden Treasury," first series. No. 194. The "Lusiad" isby Camoens 
(15 24-1 580), the greatest epic poet of Portugal. 

240 5 Here, as I take my solitary rounds : from " The Deserted 
Village," 1. 77. 

241 23 Utopia : the ideal country in the book of the same name, by 
Sir Thomas More (1478-1535). 

241 24 Yvetot : a hamlet in Normandy, whose lords in the fifteenth 
century assumed the title of king. Beranger has a ballad, " II etait un 
roi d' Yvetot," known in English through various translations and adap- 
tations, among which latter there is one by Thackeray. See Vol. 24, 
p. 135, the Biographical Edition. 

242 1 my Lord Clare and my Lord Nugent : really one man, Goldsmith's 
old friend Robert Nugent (i 702-1 788), who had become Baron Nugent 
and Viscount Clare. 

242 6 Ranelagh : Ranelagh was opened in 1742, and became the rival 
of Vauxhall Garden as a place of amusement and recreation. Goldsmith 
and Reynolds used to go often together* to Ranelagh, and Dr. Johnson 
also was fond of its pleasures. 

" Ranelagh looks like the enchanted palace of a geni, adorned with the 
most exquisite performances of painting, carving, and gilding, enlightened 
with a thousand golden lamps, that emulate the noonday sun ; crowded 
with the great, the rich, the gay, the happy, and the fair ; glittering with 
cloth of gold and silver, lace, embroidery, and precious stones. While 
these exulting sons and daughters of plenty tread their round of pleasure, 
or regale in different parties and separate lodges with fine imperial tea 
and other delicious refreshments, their ears are entertained with the most 
ravishing delights of music, both instrumental and vocal." " Humphrey 
Clinker," p. 144. A charming account of Ranelagh may be found in Mr. 
Austin Dobson's " Eighteenth Century Vignettes," first series. 

242 6 the Pantheon : a place similar to Ranelagh, built 30 years later. 

242 7 Madame Cornelys, Theresa (1723-1795) : the daughter of a 
Venetian actor, first directed several continental theaters, and later 
sang in England. She established herself at Carlyle House, Soho Square, 



NOTES 285 

and managed there fashionable subscription balls, masquerades, and 
concerts. She died at last bankrupt in the Fleet Prison. 

242 8 Mary Horneck : together with her sister Catherine, came into 
Goldsmith's life only in his forty-second year. Mary, the Jessamy 
Bride, was not married till a year after Goldsmith's death. Romance 
has gathered around her and pictured Goldsmith as loving her deeply 
and hopelessly. However that may be, it is a fact that she exercised a 
charm for Goldsmith, and that he spent some of his happiest hours with 
the two sisters. The story is known in fiction through Frankfort Moore's 
" The Jessamy Bride " (1897). 

242 15 Beauclerk, Topham (i 739-1 780) : one of Dr. Johnson's most 
devoted friends, a man of culture and reading, well known as a conversa- 
tionalist. He left a library of 30,000 volumes. 

242 16 Tom Davies: see note for p. 48, Note 2. 

243 3 Bunbury, Henry William (i 750-181 1) : a clever amateur artist 
and caricaturist. Besides many drawings and prints, he did a series of 
burlesque illustrations for " Tristram Shandy." His personal charm 
and family connections gave him easy access to the society of the great. 

243 4 Gilray : should be Gillray, James (i 757-1815), was a caricaturist 
like Bunbury, but more satirical. He burlesqued the royal family, Pitt, 
Fox, Sheridan, Napoleon, and others. 

243 16 Hazlitt, William (i 778-1830) : well known as an essayist and 
critic, was the friend of Lamb, Southey, Coleridge, Wordsworth, and 
most of the great men of his time. He was the author of " Table Talk," 
" The Spirit of the Age,'^ and other writings. 

243 17 Northcote, James (i 746-1 831) : was a pupil of Reynolds, whose 
memoirs he wrote. Hazlitt published some of Northcote's conversations, 
1830. 

243 19 The younger Colman : George Colman, the younger (i 761-1836), 
dramatist ; author of " The Heir at Law," " John Bull," and other plays, 
of comic poems, and of " Random Records," a kind of autobiography. 
Thackeray has changed in several minor instances the original text ; see 
" Broad Grins and Other Humourous Works " of George Colman, ed. 
G. B. Buckstone, p. 429. 

244 20 I plucked his gown to share the good man's smile : from " The 
Deserted Village," 1. 184. 

244 28 his " compassion for another's woe " : from " The Deserted 
Village," 1. 371. 
247 21 grand homme incompris : the great man not understood. 

Note the very graceful and happy conclusion of the lectures. 



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